It's A Date
by Nell Fratelli
Summary: Jade stays the night, and Roy finds himself letting her into his life as she shares more and more of hers. Changed to M to be safe.
1. It's a Date

**AU, where either no one yet knows that Red Arrow is Speedy's clone, or that Speedy was never in fact cloned and he and Red Arrow are one and the same drop-dead-sexy redhead. Pre-time skip events of Season 2, but they're all older; Roy is about 24, and Jade is somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 or 26 (I always imagined her as being older). **

_**It's A Date**_

It was early morning, and the golden late-summer sun was sliding through the one window of Roy Harper's bedroom. He'd been awake for a while, watching the woman beside him continue to breathe slowly, evenly. She was beautiful, there was no denying - but in her slumber, her body had taken on a looseness, a laxness, that was never there in consciousness, that made her peaceful slumber precious. Each of her carefully toned muscles was relaxed as she lay on her stomach, dark-haired head resting on the very innermost edge of the pillow he'd bought just for her. He reached out a slow hand to brush a few strands of black out of her face, careful not to let the rough calluses of his fingers come into contact with her angled brow.

She woke up anyway.

"Red," she groaned, dark eyes cracking open lids heavy with sleep. "I don't do morning fucks, if that's what you're after." Her body tensed as she slid her hands under the pillow, muscles returning to their normal tautness, all hints of peaceful relaxation gone.

Roy frowned teasingly. "Looks like I picked the wrong girlfriend, then."

A wicked smile spread Jade's full lips. "Sorry. No returns."

He stretched his long, muscled arms over his head, and noticed how Jade's eyes followed the length of them, before turning and rolling out of bed. He walked, naked, to the dresser and pulled out a pair of old sweatpants, feeling her eyes gliding up and down the back of him. "Hungry?" he asked on his way out of the bedroom. He was ravenous; he knew she would follow if she wanted.

She did a few minutes later, wrapped in her emerald kimono and nothing else. Roy was frying eggs in a pan, eyes skating over the front pages of a hefty stack of daily newspapers, and a small portable radio on the counter was tuned to the local police station.

Jade took all this in with a smirk. "Talk about working from home."

"I'm a multi-tasker. Want to get the toast?"

As he spoke, the little toaster beside the sink spat out two pieces of toast. Jade obliged him, but didn't pass up the opportunity to brush her barely-covered body against his as she passed by. "Funny," her sultry voice purred as Roy stiffened at her touch. "I didn't get that impression from last night."

* * *

This was the first time she'd stayed the night; usually, she'd hang around until Roy fell asleep - _"I get bored when you're not awake" _- but this time, after buying her a pillow and toothbrush and making sure the fridge wasn't empty, he had finally convinced her to stay. They ate their breakfasts at the kitchen counter, perched atop a pair of old barstools, with only the sounds of forks scraping plates and the staticky rasping of the police scanner. When they were finished, Roy washed the plates in the sink, leaving them on a towel on the counter to dry, before heading back to the bedroom.

"I don't know what your plan is," he called over his shoulder to Jade, who was still lounging on her stool, sipping a mug of hot coffee. "But I'm supposed to be at work in twenty minutes."

"Huh." Jade took another sip. "Red Arrow has a day job. Who would've thought?"

He reappeared in the doorway, dressed in dark pants and a green button-down. "Have to pay the rent somehow." He fumbled with clasping a wristwatch on his left arm and quirked an eyebrow at the woman still sitting at his counter. "But I guess when you make tens of thousands at a single smash-and-grab, you don't really have to worry about your next paycheck."

Jade stuck one leg out, stretching until she felt the strain in her foot, smiling at the blue eyes that traced every line of the movement. "No," she amended, "I don't have to worry about paychecks. Is this the part where you kick me out?"

"As long as you don't trash the place or invite any henchmen buddies over, I don't care how long you stay," Roy replied, tramping about the tiny apartment, scooping up a cell phone, keys, and wallet. He stopped at the counter and bent to kiss the dark assassin on the cheek. She could barely hide her surprise at the tender brush of lips on the softness below her cheekbone. "Stay as long as you want."

He was out the door before Jade had formulated a cool response.

* * *

That day at Star Industries, Roy barely paid attention to anything he did. His mid-level position at the major corporation was non-demanding enough that he rarely had to exercise more than his basic mental faculties to accomplish the mind-numbingly simple tasks, be they answering emails or writing up sales report summaries for the suits several floors up. That day, though, passed in a blur of offical-looking letterheads and coffeebreaks, and Roy couldn't get his mind off the night before, and the few minutes he'd had in his apartment that morning. Jade Nguyen was, as always, a complete mystery to him. He couldn't count the number of times she had dropped into his place unannounced, and then left just as suddenly. He knew they had to keep their... relationship discreet, for the sake of his caped career and her safety from the League of Shadows, but their erratic routine could be chalked up to more than mere discretion - more than anything else, it was _her _that kept them from leaving the apartment when she came over, _her _that chose to sneak out before the rising sun could proclaim its arrival across the sky. He didn't know if it was because she was uncomfortable, afraid, or genuinely uninterested in anything more serious than sex with him. It had vexed him for many months, her tiptoeing out the moment his eyelids dropped closed, but there had been nothing he could do or say to convince her to stay.

Until last night. He didn't even know what it was that had changed her mind, but when he had jerked awake from a dream, there she had been - small body curled around her new pillow, thick black hair splayed out over her bare back as it rose and fell slowly, in time with the quiet breaths that snaked their way through her slightly-open lips.

So he was hardly shocked - pleasantly surprised, but not shocked - when he came home that evening to find that Jade had pushed his worn coffee table against the far wall and was moving fluidly through yoga poses in front of the TV. Some kind of Asian drama was flickering across the screen, in a language Roy couldn't place. It was almost a shame to distract her from her calming - and sexy - exercises, but he knew she had to have heard him come in anyway.

"You're still here."

Jade nodded at the television as she reached her arms down to the floor and stepped through them without any outward sign of strain. "How could I leave when you have practically every channel on the face of the planet?"

He rolled eyes and headed for the bathroom. "By all means," he said, ignoring the happy thrum in his chest. _She hadn't left. _"Don't get up. I have to go out on patrol in a while."

Jade ceased her stretching exercises and turned, hands on her hips, full lips falling into a comical pout. "Don't you ever take a day off?"

"Crime never takes a day off. Why should I?"

She laughed at his cheesiness, a sound of genuine mirth. "Actually, I get three weeks off a month. Try again."

"You're one little assassin-thief in a sea of petty and organized criminals. Every day of the year, there's some kind of mugging, murder, or heist happening that can't go unpunished, and you want me to take a day off?"

The pout deepened. "Isn't that what your Justice League is for? So nobody has to bust their balls from dusk till dawn by themselves?"

Roy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. One morning together and she's already nagging him as if she were...

He didn't want to start a fight.

"Listen." He checked his watch. "It's five now. We'll eat dinner, I'll be gone at six, and try to be back before three. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I don't have to go to work. We can spend the day doing whatever you want."

Jade smirked lecherously, and Roy almost regretted having to leave. She really wasn't wearing much, and when she smiled at him like that...

"Whatever I want?"

Snapping back to the conversation, he nodded.

The dark, dangerous woman sauntered her way across the room to where Roy stood in the doorway to the bedroom, inky eyes flashing playfully. He stood, muscles frozen, in the semi-uncomfortable watch-checking position he'd started in, one shoulder leaning against the cherrywood doorframe. She slipped her way between his outstretched forearm and his chest, thin fingers pressing daintily against the fabric of his dress shirt. Her full lips were slightly parted, and Roy found himself staring helplessly at them, a hundred memories of them pressed against his skin flashing through his mind.

"Well," she began, and her husky voice did nothing to calm Roy's quickening pulse. "I guess it's a date."


	2. Saturday Off

**Author's note: In this fic, I settled on Michigan - on the coast of Lake Michigan, opposite of Chicago - for the location of Star City. I know that since the eighties, the accepted location for the city has been in California, but I don't like the idea of the Arrows being so close to where Wally and Artemis are (Stanford), and, being a bigoted romantic, I am of the firm mind that autumn should entail coloring leaves and early frosts and biting winds. So Michigan it is. To the hard-core comics fans, don't take it so hard.**

* * *

_**Saturday Off**_

"When I said we could do anything you want, I was kind of thinking that we'd have to, you know, leave the bed at some point."

It was well past noon, and Roy and Jade had yet to throw off the covers. They had passed the time more than suitably occupied, sometimes pausing for naps or breathers, like the one they were taking now.

She rolled over onto her stomach with a teasing smirk, dark eyes twinkling in a way Roy had rarely seen before. Thin fingers trailed lightly up his bicep. "Am I wearing you out, Red?"

With a grin, he snatched up her fingers roughly, but pressed her palm to his lips. The grin only widened against soft of her hand as she made a face and pretended to gag.

"Besides, what could you possibly want to get out of bed for?"

Roy thought about this. "Well," he began, "I'll probably starve to death if we have anymore _fun _without eating something."

* * *

He _had_ told her that this day was hers to do with as she wished, so he followed gamely along beside her when she glided past his unusually full kitchen and out the front door. He even left his collapsible crossbow behind at her request (demand) without dispute. He was fairly certain that should she lead him into any kind of brawl, he would be able to hold his own long enough to send a distress signal to the Leauge.

It was their first time out in the world together as anything more than enemies, and it was fair to say that he was... apprehensive.

But Jade, dressed in a tight stylish black sweater dress and accented with more bangles and necklaces than he thought was wise for an assassin to own - where, by the way, had she procured that outfit from? She'd never left his apartment and had arrived in Cheshire garb - only laughed at the trepidation on his face. It was a new sound; not the low, taunting chuckle he was used to. It wasn't _free_, exactly, but it was a more mirthful exhalation than he had yet heard come from her lips.

She pulled him down several crowded streets - Star City on a Saturday was filled with shoppers, park hoppers, diners, movie-goers, street performers, and more vendors than Roy cared to count, especially in the International District that wasn't far from his building - until stopping outside some kind of Asian restaurant. _Pho Quyen _was printed proudly in both English and kanji above the door.

She fought their way inside through the bustling crowd of various nationalities - Pho Quyen must be a local favorite - and into a booth in a corner. After they sat and were handed menus by a tiny old Asian woman who smiled and said something to Jade in an unfamiliar language, Roy looked at her questioningly.

Jade rolled her eyes at him. She knew that look. "You can ask, but I probably won't give you a straight answer."

He frowned, and decided to go with the simplest query first. "What kind of restaurant is this?"

"Vietnamese." She took her paper napkin from its place on the table and began fiddling with it, folding it into different shapes.

"You come here often?"

This time, she gave him a lazy wink. "I have to get something to eat all the nights I come through your window."

Once, her undisguised flirting would've made him wince, but now the corners of Roy's mouth twitched upwards. "_All _those nights? No wonder that old lady knew you so well."

A shrug. "She's opened late a few times for me. Loyal customer."

He watched for a moment as her napkin became a creased and even crane. "What language was she speaking?"

Jade rolled her eyes again. "Hmm. Vietnamese restaurant. Old Asian lady. Maybe she was speaking Vietnamese?"

"And you understood her?"

"I'm fluent."

"Bilingual?"

She leaned towards him across the table, and he felt her run her black-booted foot up and down along the length of his calf. "Red, there isn't even a word for how many languages I speak."

Ignoring his sudden arousal - he couldn't very well drag her back to his apartment before they'd even ordered their food - he was impressed. And even more curious. "How many?"

"Eleven."

Roy's eyebrows shot up. "Eleven? And you're fluent in all of them?"

Jade sat back with a sigh. He was so intent on ruining all her fun. "It depends. I know four of them as well as I know how to use a sai. The others come and go, depending on how much I use them." One angled eyebrow quirked upwards. "Any _other _questions you'd like to ask, _Red_?"

He barely had to think about it. "You're Asian, or at least partly. What nationality?"

Her dark eyes flashed, and for a second he thought she would strike him, or get up and disappear into the crowded streets of the International District. He was tensed for either scenario before the hardness was smoothed from her face, replaced by drawling apathy.

"My mother was Vietnamese."

She didn't say any more, and Roy felt it safest not to press further.

They passed their meal in companionable silence, puncuated every few minutes by Jade leaning in to whisper overheard snatches of the owner's conversations with the chef and waiters, or commenting on the different people they saw come in and out. He was surprised by how many times he chortled into his beef-and-basil stir fry at her ruthless but often insightful quips - she managed to wittily offend over a dozen assorted races, nationalities, and religions, attacking each with a fierce humor that would probably have made her more than a few bucks in free drinks at any comedy club's open mike night. He felt guilty over the first few chuckles - he was supposed to be a hero, justice and equality personified - but figured that it was pointless to try to fight it. There wasn't any real malice behind her jokes, anyway; that much was evident.

When they'd finished and paid the bill - his treat - and allowed themselves to be swept out the doorway and down the street by the flowing hordes of pedestrians, the autumn sky was beginning to turn pink and golden at the edges. The towering skyline of Star City blotted out the sun every few sidewalk slabs, and a crisp September breeze whistled down the streets from the lake. People were tugging jacket collars up against the oncoming Michigan chill and quickening their pace towards home.

Jade, however, seemed to have no designs on returning to Roy's apartment. She directed them deeper into the International District, eyes trained straight ahead, looking for something.

It only took Roy a minute or so after leaving the restaurant to notice that Jade's bare arms - her sweater dress had short sleeves - were covered in goose bumps. He glanced down at himself. Double layers - black sweater and green sweatshirt. Without another thought, he tugged his arms out of the sweatshirt and tapped Jade on the shoulder.

She turned and raised an eyebrow at the proffered sweatshirt, but took it without a word.

They had left the Asian sector of the district and were now surrounded by carpet-covered shop windows and mannequins modeling saris and turbans. Before Roy could ask about their destination, Jade pulled them into a smoky salon, snapping out a greeting to the dark man behind the ornately carved counter in a tongue that sounded - by the throaty and gutteral tones of the brief conversation - like Arabic. The man nodded and disappeared after a moment, returning with a round cloth sack, bulging and tied with a green ribbon. He handed it to Jade, who tucked it inside Roy's sweatshirt and tossed a wad of cash - twenties? - onto the counter before sweeping Roy back onto the street.

"Jade," he began, and faltered, wondering if he really wanted to know.

She looked at him challengingly, with a hint of amusement.

He needed to know.

"Did you just - did I just witness a drug trade?"

Definite amusement. "Sort of. But don't worry, Red - it's nothing illegal."

He didn't believe her.

She laughed - that lighthearted tinkle again. "I wouldn't get you in trouble on your one day off. Don't you trust me?"

From the glint in her dark eyes, he didn't know if he should.

* * *

"You bought - coffee?"

They were back in his apartment now, and Jade was pouring boiling water into a French press - not Roy's; where was she getting this stuff from? - over the dark grounds she'd dumped from the cloth pouch. Still wearing his sweatshirt, he didn't fail to notice, despite the ten minutes they'd been inside and the comfortable room temperature he maintained in his apartment.

She flashed the feline grin for which she'd earned her name. "Did you think I bought coke off Mahmoud? With this body?" She gestured down at herself, and though the sweatshirt covered up her tantalizingly lithe form, there was still enough bare leg to send Roy off into reminisces of earlier that day. "I don't think so. Caffeine is the only drug I allow into this temple. And you have not _lived _until you've tried Al-Qahwa."

True to her word, the coffee was delicious - a strong, rounded Arabian flavor that certainly turned the Watchtower's weak espresso to shame.

After they'd both had a cup - small cups, Jade warned, or they wouldn't be able to sleep for a week - she began slipping off her leather boots, letting each drop to the floor of the kitchen. With the rush of metabolizing caffeine in his veins, it barely took Roy half a second to match his mood to hers, and at the sight of her bare feet, the bubbling heat that had been building in his abdomen since Pho Quyen surged through him. It took a conscious effort not to rip the rest of her clothes off for her.

But, clearly, Jade wanted to handle that part. She shrugged the sweatshirt from her shoulders, letting it fall on top of the boots, lifted each dangling necklace from her chest and slipped all the bangles from her wrists, depositing the jewelry on the counter before sliding her fingers down to the hem of her tight dress. All the while, she never broke eye contact with him.

He made it until she'd worked the dress up to just below her breasts before he couldn't take it anymore. Screw control - it didn't matter how many nights she'd crept through his window and into his bed, he was never going to get over how agonizingly tempting she was to him, especially when she tried to play these teasing games. In one swift movement he had the dress up and over her head, and it too joined the pile of clothes and shoes on the black tile of his kitchen floor, leaving Jade standing before him in a bra and underwear in a matching blood red - not what she'd had on the night before, or the one before that. Where was all of this stuff _coming _from?

At the moment, he didn't care.

She launched herself at him before he had a chance to do anything else, strong but slender legs wrapping themselves around his waist, thin fingers and sharp nails digging through his hair and into his scalp, so hard it hurt, and he cried out as she closed her mouth around his, her tongue driving itself between his lips in the oh-so familiar plunge and twist he had come to know and love in the last few months.

Wait, _love_ - ?

No time. His hands came up to support her back, to press her closer to him, to trace the slight protrusions of her spine, to cup the smooth curve of the fabric at the base of it and, oh, she was grinding against him so sweetly, and, forgetting the hours they'd already devoted to sex that day, he took one or two steps forward until she was planted firmly on the counter. She wouldn't allow him to break their lips apart when he tried to get his sweater off - the harder-than-usual nip on his tongue told him that much - but he didn't put up a fight as her hands dove for the zipper of his jeans. Who was he to protest when she wanted to get straight to the good part?

Later, when they were back in bed and he was cursing the unforgiving numbers of the electronic clock on the nightstand, warning him that he didn't have long until six o'clock, when he would have to don the mask and the suit and begin his nightly prowls of the streets, he would ask her where all the clothes and the coffee press came from. She rolled lazily towards him, nuzzling her forehead into his shoulder like an affectionate cat, and purred that she _had _left the apartment while he was at work yesterday, to pick up a few things she needed. He wondered if she was saying what he thought she was saying, if he was coming to understand her aloofness better than she perhaps wanted him to, but didn't comment further. His thickly-calloused thumb traced circles above the veins of her small wrist, above the slightly puckered white skin there. He'd found many scars like this one on her before, but had never asked where any of them came from. He figured he either didn't want to know, or that Jade wouldn't give him the real stories.

As the clock ticked closer to six, he rolled off the bed with a groan. He was as fit as could be - archery alone required a strong torso, and crime-fighting demanded even more of the body - but sex with Jade still left him sore. She grinned up at him, curled around her new pillow like she would never let it go, as he attempted to stretch the aches out, and sighed happily to herself. He trudged around the darkening bedroom, gathering up spandex pieces and awkwardly tugging them on. When he had everything in place - shirt, leggings, boots, mask, bow, quiver - he bent over her naked form for the last time that night and pressed a soft, slow, chaste kiss on her waiting lips. This time, she was prepared for him.

"Red?" she said in a low voice as he turned towards the bedroom doorway. She couldn't keep the hum of contentment from her voice. Later on, she might berate herself for the betrayal of emotion, but now, with the warmth still seeping through her, she couldn't care less. "As far as first dates go, that wasn't too shabby."


	3. Alone Time

**Author's note: In the last chapter, Jade disclosed that she is fluent in four languages, and proficient in seven others. I don't know anything about Jade's actual character beyond what is shown in the TV series, but I've been reading in fics that Artemis speaks four languages, and figured that communication would be a valuable skill for any internationally acclaimed ninja-assassin. If anyone cares, I came up with my own list of Jade's various tongues: English, Vietnamese, French, Mandarin (the ones she's fluent in), Cantonese, Korean, Japanese, Persian, Arabic, Russian, German (proficient).**

* * *

_**Alone Time**_

It was an eventful night.

Two gas station hold-ups, a mugging, an attempted rape (or at least definite sexual menacing), and now this.

He was crouched on the roof of a Starbucks several doors down from a Star City Bank, watching as a handful of black-garbed goons leapt out of the back of a dark van in front of the bank's front steps. It was a few hours past midnight, and a vanful of darkly attired night prowlers was never an innocent omen.

But Red Arrow waited until one of them - the leader? - had pulled out an electronic lock breaker and was affixing it to the door of the bank before he leased his first arrow. A net arrow - the deviant was wrapped up and tottering on his feet before he even knew what hit him. His strangled yell greeted the next barrage of arrows, pointed ones that pinned the others to the brick wall of the bank's entrance, three per thug.

Roy made his way down from the rooftops and down the block to the bank with an internal sigh. Too easy. He wasn't surprised - disappointed in humanity, but not surprised - upon reaching the squirming lot and discovering that they were just a bunch of kids. Coming from the hero who couldn't even claim twenty-five, it was probably hypocritical, but honestly, none of these punks looked like they could legally buy a beer.

He made sure their restraints would hold - ignoring their snarled protests and curses - and called the nearest police station to come pick up the delinquents before making his way down the next street.

For several blocks, there wasn't a person in sight. The silence was off-putting; he'd been throwing himself into his work all night - more than usual - in an attempt to distract him from the nagging, pulling, whispering suspicion he had. So far it had worked, and Roy hadn't had a moment to spare on reflection, but after fifteen minutes of inactivity, his mind was starting to slip back to the day before and a certain dark and dangerous she-assassin from the shadows.

He couldn't count the number of times they'd slept together - euphemism - in the last twenty-four hours. They had gone on their first real date, after her spending the last two days in his apartment. Speaking of which, he'd been noticing an awful lot of non-Roy items in the place that weekend; extra clothes, a coffee press, an extra toothbrush and small makeup bag tucked discreetly behind his electric razor in the bathroom cabinet. And he'd relished every minute of their time together - he hadn't brought so much as a measly smoke arrow when they'd left the apartment together for the first time.

And when they'd returned from their "date," they'd promptly gotten naked again. Or she had, anyway. And while he'd still been able to think coherently, the word _love _had cropped up, unbidden, in his many and heated thoughts on the beautiful Jade Nguyen.

For obvious reasons, he'd filed it away at the time for further investigation. He'd only wished he wouldn't have to address it so soon.

Roy tugged the lowest rung of the fire escape of a trashy-looking apartment building down so he could clamber up to the roof. He was more comfortable on high ground.

Pacing the dark rooftop, vainly searching for criminal shenanigans he could thwart, he was unable to ward off the word any longer.

Did he love Jade?

They'd been "together" for months now - was it eleven months? - almost a year. If her sneaking in through his living room window once a week or so counted as being together. But she had stayed over the last few nights - something he'd been hinting that he wanted for weeks - and they had spent an entire Saturday together. It was proven that he enjoyed being with her, fully clothed, by the sheer number of times he'd laughed at lunch. A small but firm voice in his head argued that he even trusted her. Hadn't he left his bow behind when he left home, trailing after the assassin trained to kill in a hundred different ways?

But she was dangerous. Evil. A killer. He'd seen her handiwork, been on the scene moments too late to discover politicians, corporate executives, tech developers, even her fellow criminals slumped over or sprawled out, lips blue and eyes staring blankly from the jellyfish toxin that was her trademark.

She was quick, relentless, and mysterious. He might be beginning to trust her, but she didn't trust him with hardly anything. He didn't know where she lived, where she grew up, the stories behind the scars he found etched onto her otherwise flawless skin. He didn't even know her age. He'd only discovered yesterday, after almost a year, that she spoke eleven languages. _Eleven_.

Jade Nguyen might be a thieving murderer, but she had enough power over him to impress and captivate him for eleven months on end. He hadn't been on so much as a coffee date with another woman since he'd started seeing Jade. Not that he'd gone on a lot of dates before her - his heroic activities didn't leave much time for extraneous socialization. But it was the sentiment more than the facts that was important. He pressed gloved fingers to his masked temple. So many warring thoughts.

Did he love her?

He'd never been in love before. The closest reference material he had was Oliver and Dynah; the tender bickering and expensive dates that used to always end in Ollie assigning Roy to make a hundred bullseye shots in the gym just to get the teen out of the way for a good thirty minutes after patrols.

Roy smirked to himself. His old mentor had thought he was being so clever, sending the sidekick into the far corner of the penthouse apartment, but Roy had never been under any delusion as to what the archer and the Canary were doing behind closed doors.

No, he and Jade weren't at all similar to Ollie and Dynah - besides the copious fornication. But even that was different. Ollie, despite his liberalism, was deeply old-fashioned, and Roy had never been fearful of moving between various rooms, lit or otherwise, when he had lived in Ollie's apartment, whereas Jade had once dragged Roy into a copse of trees after he foiled one of the Shadows' Kobra venom hand-offs. His mentor preferred to keep his... relations behind closed doors. Roy - at least with Jade - usually couldn't wait long enough to find a door to close.

From the rooftop, his sharp eyes flickered towards movement on the pavement below, muscles tensing in anticipation.

Just a cat.

He groaned softly. He was still skirting away from the essential question, even within the privacy of his own thoughts.

_ Did he love her?_

* * *

After Roy left for the night, Jade slipped out of bed and into the shower. Eight collective hours of sex did not make for a ladylike scent.

Roy's bathroom, like the rest of his apartment, was small and unaccented. No decoration, no personal touches, not even a rug to shield her feet from the cold of the black tile floor. The few belongings he did have were arranged neatly, with everything in its place. Even the cabinet above the sink where she had stashed her toothbrush and makeup was orderly.

She turned the water on hot, as hot as it would go, and tipped her thick mane of hair back into the jet of scalding water streaming from the shower head with a wide grin and reached for the soap.

Hmm. She'd forgotten to bring shampoo.

When she'd finished her shower - and emptied Roy's too-small bottle of shampoo - she wrapped herself in a towel and padded back into the bedroom.

Damn. No hairdryer or bathrobe.

She settled for an old high school sweatshirt she found in the cherry wood dresser, the logo on the front almost too faint to read. It was big on her, reaching below the red panties she'd retrieved from the kitchen floor - apparently Roy had been just as big in the shoulder when he was in grade school.

The thought of high school Roy made her smile. She wondered if he had been a jock or a teacher's pet.

Her stomach rumbled loudly.

The fridge was full of food, but it was almost all meat. Ground beef, a pound of bacon, a cut of honeyed ham, a few steaks. She rolled her eyes. Talk about guy food. Very little to be found for a vegetarian. There was a bag of carrots in one of the drawers, and a few apples in the one beneath. She pulled these out and began to munch.

She would have to remember to bring her rice cooker and iron wok so she wouldn't starve in this place.

It was still early - not even seven o'clock - and thanks to the shot of Al-Qahwa she'd downed, she probably wouldn't get so much as a catnap before dawn, so she sank onto the worn couch, Indian style, and flicked on the TV. While the fridge was lacking in Jade-compatible snacks, the scope of Roy's Dish Network suited her perfectly. Even out here in the States, he had her favorite soap channel. She flipped to it and settled into the floppy cushions to enjoy her carrots and Vietnamese drama. It was one she'd seen before, so she let her mind wander from the scenes of tragedy and familial strength out the window and towards the red crew cut she knew to be lurking on rooftops at that very moment, probably watching for the next helpless old lady to need a hand crossing the street.

She snorted to herself - snorting was one of the many things she allowed herself to do when she knew no one was around to see - and nearly choked on a piece of carrot.

Eventually she grew bored of the passionate confessions of emotion. With the last carrot in hand, she made her way about the empty apartment in the near-darkness, trailing thin fingers along the length of the few pieces of furniture. There was a bookcase against the wall beside the TV, finely carved and made of cherry wood, same as the dresser and bedframe. The glossy finish - a warm, spicy bergundy-red - exactly matched the quiet fire of Jade's archer boy. She smirked as her eyes flickered over the titles of the handful of books arranged - alphabetically by author - on the shelves. One of them caught her eye, and she pulled it out.

An old but well-cared for copy of _The Count of Monte Cristo_.

Interesting.

Jade passed the rest of the night perusing the book. It had clearly been read many times before, but there wasn't a single bent or dogeared page. The vintage tome had been kept with almost obsessive care.

It was late - hours past midnight - when she finished and shoved it nonchalantly in a random place back on the shelf. She vaguely wondered if Roy would notice and she meandered back into the bedroom. The caffeine was wearing off, and she was left feeling drained. She dropped tiredly onto the bed, facing the moon and handful of stars visible through the window, and closed her eyes.

* * *

She heard him open the front door and tramp through the kitchen-living room and into the bedroom, blanketed in darkness. She felt the mattress sink where he sat on the corner to pull off his boots and spandex, felt it pop back up when he stood, heard the low scrape of the wooden drawers when he opened the dresser to find sweatpants. She didn't betray her wakefulness until after he'd layed down beside her and yanked the covers up from the foot of the bed, settling into his pillow with a quiet grunt.

"How was work, honey?" she asked teasingly, turning over to face him, propping her head up on one hand.

Roy blinked, and if she wasn't accustomed to shadows, Jade would've missed it in the blackness of the bedroom. "I didn't mean to wake you," he mumbled.

She pressed herself close into his side, throwing one bare leg over his hips under the blankets. "Didn't you?"

He exhaled loudly. "Don't you ever get tired, Chesh? Remind me in the morning."

She leaned in until her face was almost touching his, and it was obvious, even in the dark, that she was staring shamelessly at his mouth. "Tired? Who, me?"

Normally, he wouldn't have needed any further prompting to close the distance. As it was, he felt his pulse quickening as his heartbeat increased. But tonight, he was exhausted in more ways than one. "Jade," he said in warning, but his gravelly voice was soft. "Can we just sleep for a while? I'm beat."

Her mouth twisted into a frown, but she didn't move away. "Wow. Must've had a rough night."

"No joke."

Not much later, the room was silent except for the twin lullabies of low breathing, and even though Roy's bed now sported two pillows, one shiny black and still-damp head could be found resting mere inches away from a bright red one, and there was just one big outline under the covers of two bodies curled around each other.


	4. Back Home

**This may or may not be in character. I think I'm slipping further and further out of the Red-and-Cheshire spectrum. Is it unforgivable? Let me know at the end. Also, I've realized that I have absolutely no idea where this now-sizable drabble is going. Can anybody say "useless fluff"?**

* * *

_**Back Home**_

Weeks passed. The last of the warm days were blown away by the autumn wind, and the city braced itself for the shift of seasons.

Jade prepared by bringing more and more of her belongings - in small, easily-overlooked doses - from the shithole she paid rent for to Roy Harper's small but nice apartment that she was beginning to refer to as home.

Not to him - of course not. Just when she was out shopping or getting a bite to eat, when she would be approached by relentless hordes of assorted men and boys, asking if she needed help with her bags or if she wanted to share a cab or maybe they could buy her a drink? When she was feeling polite, or when there were too may witnesses around, she would smile her most charming smile instead of deliver a distracting blow to the side of the head - nothing fatal, just a quick shock. _"No, thanks, my boyfriend is waiting for me at home."_

He wasn't - he was rarely at the apartment when she wasn't there, between his job doing whatever and his nightly street-prowling and his occaisonal trips to top-secret superhero hideouts to train or have a playdate. She used to deny that Roy was even her boyfriend; to herself, because, to be honest, she didn't have any friends, and nobody ever asked. But now, after having slept in his bed for she-forgot-how-many nights in a row, after sneaking in more than half her wardrobe and all of her personal-care items from her place - she was too proud to tell Roy how much she hated her apartment and to ask if she could move in - and after she lost all interest in other men, she couldn't keep the truth from herself anymore.

That last one became obvious when she had gone out for a run one day while Roy was at work - there was a nice park on the lake not too far from _home _- and she passed by a handful of perfectly delicious male specimens, walking the dog or out for a jog, that she knew from experience she could've had eating out of her hand with a few choice phrases and trailing fingers.

But she hadn't so much as felt a twinge of lust, let alone spared a suggestive glance.

Later, when she'd gotten back and was standing under the shower head and squeezing out shampoo from her own bottle, she realized what had happened. Or what hadn't.

It didn't bother her at all.

Neither did her new and largely-sedentary lifestyle. For once, everything was simple and easy and predictable. She and Roy shared breakfast in the mornings. He went off to work, and she did whatever she wanted; reading, watching TV, went shopping, exploring the city, or went for a run or to the gym. When he came home in the evenings they had dinner - sometimes he cooked, sometimes she did, and sometimes they went out. Then it was hero time, and Jade had the apartment to herself again. She enjoyed the freedom this life allowed; she had all the time in the world to do whatever she wanted, in a nice place that didn't have rats or a horrible draft or drunken neighbors. And when patrol time was up and the city was safe until the next night, Roy always came home to a waiting - and sometimes sleeping - Jade. Their days were punctuated with the same panting, clutching, desperate sex they'd shared as casual fuck buddies. She was glad _that _hadn't changed.

* * *

One night, after Roy had left for hero duty, Jade's phone buzzed from the box in the closet that held Cheshire's mask and kimono. It could only have been for one reason.

Cheshire was being summoned.

Grudgingly, she packed a duffel bag and hid it under the bed before crawling beneath the covers to wait for Roy. The Shadows could wait until after he fell asleep.

He came back early - just after two - and Jade acted as if nothing were different. He didn't suspect a thing; why should he? She'd told him once that she only worked one week out of the month, but it had been almost a whole month since that first weekend she'd stayed, and she hadn't been called before and he'd never asked.

It had been a full three days since they'd been together - between work and an uptick in that damned criminal activity, he'd barely been home - so it was hardly an understatement to say that when she heard keys jangling in the lock on the front door, Jade's eyes flew open and she sprang out of bed, threw off the horribly PG-rated pajamas she'd dozed off in and reached for the Victoria's Secret bag sitting on the dresser. _Too early, too early..._

Roy was already smiling when he entered the bedroom, but the happy grin was wiped clean off by the sight that met him when he came through the doorway.

"Well, this is new," he said with a swallow after a pause that was a moment too long.

Jade shrugged from her position on the bed. She was lying on her side in the very center, long silky hair - she'd taken the time to blow-dry it - tossed over one shoulder, leaving the view completely unimpeded.

He had yet to take off the supersuit. She could see his hard-on poking out through the red and black.

She couldn't help laughing out loud. Roy Harper - Red Arrow - the big, bad archer of Star City - couldn't last three seconds in a room with her and an empty pink Secret bag.

* * *

He didn't fall asleep until just before dawn. Not like that was entirely his fault, but she wasn't about to let him hit the snooze button on the first - and last, but he didn't know that yet - sex they'd be having for days.

She dressed silently, retrieved her bag from under the bed, scribbled a note on the counter, and was gone seconds before the pink-gold sunrise peeked through the curtains.

_ Be back in two weeks. Don't look for me._

* * *

She had to stop back in her Gotham apartment to go through her stash of weapons before boarding the plane. It would fly nonstop for more than a day, courtesy of the Shadows' unstoppable arsenal of pilots. The mission was a simple one. Infiltrate the Minister of Whatever's entourage, gain access to his hotel room - no unnecessary security-footage risks on this one - and leave the package. It might even be fun; she got to pull out a brand-new alias for this one. Seul Mi Ryou. A chance to utilize her Russian _and _Korean.

It turned out not to be interesting. Just a bunch of old Asians tottering around in ill-fitting suits, tripping over themselves to flatter each other and clearly tiptoeing around whatever it was they were all congregated for. She'd slipped into the target's inner circle - definitely noticed, and more than enthusiastically welcomed, going by how many dinner invitations she'd received - dropped the package, and stayed long enough to clear herself of any and all suspicion when whatever was inside scared Asian Minister Number Seven shitless. She'd been back on a plane with a few days to spare.

It was nice being ahead of schedule for a change.

* * *

She'd collected her sizable reward, packed another duffle of things from Gotham, and stopped at the bakery around the corner from home in Star City for an _I'm-back _cake - she refused to call it an_ I'm-sorry-for-leaving _cake - and had the door to the apartment open before she froze.

Voices. And people.

Not just any people. Her carefully trained eye took in the scene before her and processed it before the others had time to recover.

Her sister, golden hair shorter than Jade remembered, lounging on the couch in the same spot Jade had watched TV in the night before she'd left, cup of wine - Roy didn't have any wineglasses - lifted to her lips. The boyfriend - Kid Quick, or whatever - next to her, holding a plate piled high with mashed potatoes, bacon, and steak. Roy was at the kitchen sink, up to his elbows in sudsy water because despite being this far into the twenty-first century, he _still _didn't have a dishwasher.

And if _she _was surprised to see the two visitors - Roy _never _had people over - then they looked like the world had come crashing down around their ears. Roy himself didn't look the king of cool at the moment, either; he was staring back and forth between her and the younger couple on the couch, face blank but she knew what he was thinking anyway. He could never hide anything from her.

She was the first to speak.

"Well hello, sis," she purred, closing the door behind her and crossing the room to dump her things on the counter. "It's been a while."

Artemis just blinked, eyes following her sister's path.

There was an audible swallowing sound.

"Uh, Roy?" the speedster choked out. "Why is Cheshire in your apartment?"

Artemis broke in before Roy could reply.

"What the _fuck_, Jade?" she screeched, and slammed her glass down on the old coffee table, standing and stalking over to her sister. She stood on the opposite side of the counter, hands splayed out angrily on the surface as she leaned over. "What the _flying fuck_?"

"What?" she asked casually, and the false note she usually reserved for these types of situations surfaced in her voice. "Not happy to see me?"

"Um," the boy from the couch interjected. "I'm missing something. Really important. Somebody explain, please?"

Roy sighed heavily, bracing his wet and soapy arms against the side of the sink. "Wally. Artemis." He reached for the dishtowel hanging off the oven handle, warily meeting his two friends' gazes. "Jade's been... living with me."

Realization clicked behind Wally's wide eyes. For a speedster, he was incredibly slow. "_Cheshire _- Artemis' _sister _- is your _girlfriend_?"

* * *

It was an interesting few hours after that. Twenty questions would have been a gross understatement. There was more hurt shouting from Artemis - why hadn't Jade _said _something to her, in all this time? Why hadn't _Roy_? - bewildered questions from Wally, and tired explanations from Roy. Jade had mostly stood there, throwing in a few words that only served to rile everyone up again, occaisonally smiling and laughing at her sister's utter disbelief. Apparently, she'd thought Jade had just been toying with the older archer all those years ago in Louisiana. She had been, but that didn't mean she could never act on her taunts.

When it came time for the kids to go, everyone had calmed down a bit; Artemis enough to shoot Jade and Roy a knowing grin. Wally had clapped a friendly hand to the darker woman's shoulder - a show of affection she had _no _recollection of inviting - and made a supposition out loud that caused both Artemis and Roy to flinch.

"So I guess you're sort of like my sister-in-law now, huh?"

Despite herself, Jade felt the corners of her mouth twitch upwards. The kid was an idiot, but a charming idiot. "Sort of." She waited until the door was almost closed behind them before calling "But if you hurt my baby sister, I'll kill you!" to their retreating backs. She thought she heard Artemis shout something back in turn, but the now-closed door muffled the words. Jade chuckled.

She helped Roy clean up the rest of the glasses and plates in silence.

Finally, with all the dishes cleaned and dried, he turned towards her in the tiny space, and she was struck with the full force of his steely blue glare.

Oops.

"A note?" he ground out, and for a second Jade wondered how he had hidden this anger the whole time his little friends had been over. "A note? And then you're just gone?"

She rolled her eyes but stepped closer to him. There was something about the flashing of his unmasked eyes that was really, really hot. "I used to be gone every night, Red. Or has our little slice of domestic bliss made you forget?"

He brushed past her and stomped towards the bedroom. She felt a thrill flutter through her abdomen - she'd been waiting for this for twelve days - but he reemerged before she could follow.

He was holding his cell phone. "Give me your number," he demanded gruffly. "Right now."

"I don't have one."

He glared at her disbelievingly. "How can you not have one?"

Jade shrugged. "The Shadows gave me a phone, but it can't call or text. Receiving only."

Roy threw his phone onto the couch with a grunt of rage and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. He took a few calming breaths before his shoulders relaxed and he was able to speak to the backs of his eyelids. "You went on a job."

It wasn't a question, but she answered anyway. "Yes."

Unleashed blue eyes pierced through her. "You killed someone?"

"No."

"Well, what was it? Did you steal some state-of-the-art tech? Deliver drugs? Break somebody out of prison?"

She rolled her eyes. "You're such a drama queen."

He closed the few feet of emptiness between them with two long strides. Big hands came up to grasp her by the shoulders. "I'm not screwing around, Jade. What did you do?"

She could've twisted her way out of his grip, could've broken his wrists, or executed a beautifully aimed knee-to-groin shot, or otherwise incapacitated the quietly ferocious hero who seemed seconds away from shaking answers out of her, but there was something in his expression that made Jade hold back. "Coercion," was all she said, though, because no matter who it was, she did not appreciate being manhandled in a non-fun way.

"Who? Into what?"

She fought back a sigh. She hated talking about her work. "Can't we just go back to pretending that I'm professionally unemployed so you can take my clothes off, already?"

To her deep surprise, this half-hearted appeal to Roy's libido worked. He bent and scooped her up into his tightly muscled arms, and before Jade could say anything else, he was dumping her unceremoniously onto his bed and crushing her lips with his. She responded more than readily, wrapping her black stocking-ed legs around his waist as he covered her with his body and pulling him deeper into her by the back of the neck.

After the first time, when they were naked and lying under the sheets - it was getting chillier as autumn persisted - Roy kissed her more gently, and instead of rolling on top of him and cutting to the chase like she normally would have, Jade smiled and curled up beside him, returning the soft pressure.

"So why was my sister here tonight?"

Roy shrugged, and in the low yellow light thrown by the lamp on the bedside table, the movement made the elongated Roy-shadow on the wall behind him wiggle. "Wally's an old friend, and I like Artemis."

Jade grinned. "Aw, my boyfriend gets along with my baby sister. How nice. But seriously, her boyfriend's name is Wally?"

He chuckled. "They used to be unbearable. But it's been four or five years now."

She nodded, and she thought back to the Artemis she had known a long time ago - always dreaming of Wonderland, a life that wasn't so harsh as theirs...

"They seem happy together." Every big-sister instinct Jade had ever supressed sighed in relief. "But why did they come here now?" She'd been around for a month, and there had never been mention of an upcoming visit, or even past visits, nothing to suggest that he was even still in contact with those old teammates he'd so firmly rejected those years ago.

He brushed a stray strand of raven-black hair back from her face as his eyes clowded over. "It was... empty here. While you were gone."

It was silly - ridiculous - but at those words, Jade's unshakable heart skipped a beat.

_ I missed you, too._

She didn't say it.

* * *

Later, after she _had _rolled onto him - they had twelve days to make up for - and they were lying still again, enjoying the sweet soreness in both their bodies, Roy happened to glance at the clock. He swore and leapt out of bed, dug through the closet, grabbing his Red Arrow effects and tugging them on haphazardly, stumbling over his own feet as he struggled to tug the tight pant legs on at the same time. Jade watched contentedly from the bed, stretching and breathing in the scent of the room she hadn't slept in for two weeks. The next day they would wake up next to each other, maybe even break her no-morning-fucks rule, cut into her _I'm-home_ cake, and begin their easy lives again.

She'd really missed this place.

* * *

**The end? **


	5. Confrontation

**So, not the end. The bubbly and charming **_**leafysummers **_**helped me out of my tight spot, and this is the brainchild of her plot suggestions and the ever-fluffy blanket I am always compelled to throw over anything and everything. Sorry about the sad attempts at smut - my imagination sometimes carries me to a place where polite words do not go. And before anybody gets all excited, NO - Jade is not pregnant in this chapter. She's just having **_**feelings**_**. I would also like to remind everyone that I took the creative liberty of erasing the fact that Roy is a clone - or else pretending that the events of episodes "Usual Suspects" and "Auld Aquaintance" have yet to pass. Just so nobody gives themselves a headache trying to fit in Roy's real-boy angst.**

* * *

_**Confrontation**_

They did break her morning rule.

It wasn't as bad as she'd thought it would be - they'd slept just little enough so neither of them had morning breath, and he took care of all the hard parts. All she'd had to do was roll onto her back and pretend that she wasn't enjoying herself, which wasn't very difficult, at least for the first few minutes; her eyelids were still heavy from sleep, her limbs lazy and resistant to movement at such an early hour. It was seven AM - if she could've been sure that her voice wouldn't come out a pitiful croak, she would've asked Roy what the hell he thought he was doing.

He didn't seem to mind her sluggishness, if the slow but unrelenting kisses pressed to her neck and shoulders were any indication. It was a pleasant feeling, being caressed so softly in her semi-sleep state, big hands running up and down her ribcage, sometimes tickling to coax a reaction out of her, just to make sure she wasn't falling asleep again.

When he came, it was with a sharp breath and squeezing fingers on her hips, probably hard enough to bruise, but the sweet pressure only prompted Jade to wrap her arms around his broad shoulders. She groggily murmured his name into his ear as she spread her fingers and pressed her palms to the well-defined muscles above his shoulderblades, and she felt his smile against her neck.

After a good half hour of languid cuddling - which neither of them would ever admit to willingly participating in - the alarm went off on the bedside table, and it was time for Roy to slide off her and get dressed for work. She hid her shiver as the heat from his all-ecompassing body was replaced with an empty chill, and she yanked the thick covers up to her chin to cover her naked body, curling in on herself. She suddenly felt jarringly empty inside.

She pretended to be asleep when Roy came from the kitchen to kiss her goodbye. He didn't say anything when he leaned over her to press his lips to her forehead, but she stayed still until she heard the door close behind him. With a deep and confused sigh, she buried her mysteriously pounding head into the pillows and mashed her eyes shut for a few more hours of sleep, determined to ignore whatever was worming its way through the apartment that had never felt this hollow before.

* * *

That day, Roy came back with a small cardboard box. Without a word, he dropped it beside her on the couch and went about boiling pasta for dinner.

"A cell phone?" Jade asked, eyeing the box next to her knee. It boasted all the newest features and the greatest service coverage in the country in vibrant pink lettering.

"My number's already in there," Roy informed her, dripping olive oil into the pot of water. "And so is Artemis'."

Jade raised an eyebrow as she opened the box and pulled out her thin, shiny black new phone. "Meddling in my family life, Red? Are you going to be calling me every time I leave the apartment, too?"

It was supposed to be a jibe, throw him on the defensive so maybe he'd take the damn thing back - she really had no use for phones, and they just reminded her of her _master _anyway. But Roy was unfazed.

"It's a hell of a lot better than waking up to an empty bed and a cryptic note on the counter."

There - the tightening of his shoulders, thrown out just a little too straight.

Not completely unfazed, then.

Jade swung up from her seat and padded her way, barefoot, to where he stood in the cramped little kitchen, phone in hand. Roy purposefully ignored her approach, standing squarely in front of the stove top as he poured half a box of into penne the pot. He still didn't look at her when she opened the fridge and handed him a jar of pesto sauce, or when she stood so close that he almost elbowed her in the shoulder when he lifted an arm to stir the pasta. It wasn't until she reached out with a thin finger and poked him in the side that he rounded on her.

His face was a hilarious mixture of annoyance, frustration, and something he was trying to hide.

Jade snapped a picture with her swanky new phone before Roy could even blink.

"Hm," she hummed, examining the photo. It was a perfect two-inch imitation of the tall, muscular, blue-eyed redhead that was frowning down at her now. "Nice camera."

* * *

He came back early that night, so early that it wasn't even past midnight, though _came in _probably wasn't an accurate description. _Threw open the door and stormed in_ was more on the money.

Red Arrow - in all his masked, spandexed, and bow-wielding glory - stalked right up to her, caught midstep between the counter that held the chocolate cake she'd bought the day before and the couch. For half a second, though the thought was ridiculous - she hadn't told him about the cake yet - Jade imagined he was going to blow up at her for breaking into the chocolatey pastry without him.

If only.

"_You went to Vladivostok?_" he shouted when he was less than a foot away, and the force of his rage would have made her flinch if she hadn't had experience with being on the receiving end of rage much more poignant than this.

Jade met the steely glare of his black and white mask, her face instinctively wiped of all emotion.

"Do you even know what you did?" Roy kept shouting. "Do you know what happened because of you?"

These were clearly rhetorical questions.

Veins were popping in his forehead and what was visible of his neck. Tendons were stretched taught in the arm that had his bow.

"All this work between diplomats and businessmen, the politics that went into this, the _years_, and you just blew in and ruined it in two weeks!"

This was getting excessive.

"Are you going to tell me exactly what you're so mad about?" Jade said quietly, but heard the edge in her own voice. She slid her untouched cake plate onto the counter, freeing up her hands so she could cross her arms in front of her.

"Don't play me, Jade, you know - "

"Actually," she interrupted, and even though Roy was still shouting, he stopped mid-bluster. "All I know is that I delivered a package to an old horndog Korean." There was real venom in her tone now. "I'm just the pawn, remember, Red? No context, no intel, no master plans."

He wasn't mollified.

"No master plans? Who gives a shit if you knew the plan or not? Everything fell apart because _you_," he jabbed his finger into her chest - not hard enough to hurt, but still, "answered your _owner's _call like a damn dog and ran off to do his bidding."

Something snapped.

"_Me?_ _I _ran off? What the hell do you call what you do every _fucking _night, _Roy?_" She was losing it, that carefully composed control she had kept for so many years - she felt it caving in on itself, giving way to an unrecognizable whirlwind of feelings she didn't know she'd had. "You're gone all the time, you prance around in your suit of self-righteousness with your caped friends, thinking you're all angels and patting each other on the backs in the name of _justice _- "

"Compared to what we fight against every damn day, yeah, we are angels! We protect people, innocent people, from getting crushed under the heel of bastards like your _boss_."

"'Innocent people'?" Jade snorted. "You don't even know where to look for innocence, Red. You overlook everyone that really needs saving so you can take on the more convenient targets, the _bad guys _you can punch."

"Yeah, because there _are _bad guys out there who don't give a shit if the independence of an entire _nation _comes crashing down around her ears! Do you even think about the consequences of your little _dream job_?"

_ "You don't fucking know me, Roy Harper!"_ This time, she did shout.

He threw his fisted hands into the air. "How the fuck can I?"

And then he was gone, bow and quiver and all, out the door, and Jade was left alone again in the empty apartment.

* * *

She called Artemis from the airport.

"Whoo 'zis?"

"Hey, sis. Want to come pick me up?"

* * *

Artemis pulled up in the departure terminal in a beat up Chrysler sedan, rolled down the window and waved Jade over from her seat on a bench. She stood fluidly in the flourescent lights - the sun wouldn't be up for another hour or so - and made her way across the empty terminal with her two duffel bags and hopped into the front seat.

Artemis looked at her questioningly, but remained silent.

"So." Jade couldn't stand that look. "Know any good hotels around here? I've never been to Cali before."

Artemis put the car in drive and pulled out of the airport, stealing quick glances at her sister. She looked like a mess; dark circles under her eyes, colorless cheeks, and hair thrown up in a careless bun. Maybe for anyone else, this would've been normal for just having gotten off a plane, but if Artemis remembered anything about her sister, it was that she was meticulous. Always.

"I don't know what's wrong," she began, biting her lip in a quick stab of worry, but Jade faced away from her out the window. "But you're not going to some shitty hotel. You can stay in our extra bedroom."

The "extra bedroom" was in a little rectangle of a house on a lamplit street. Jade trudged behind Artemis up a flight of steps to the the front door, followed her tiredly through the tiny place, down a short hallway, and into a room that looked like it had been furnished by somebody with way more money than her sister had. Modern-sculpted steel bedstead, plush black bedding, one of those fancy pillows that mold to headshapes.

"This is normally our friend Dick's room, when he visits," Artemis was saying. Jade was only half-listening. "But it's my house. He probably wouldn't care if you used his stuff, anyway."

She said something that sounded like "class in a few hours" and "see you in the afternoon," but Jade just fell onto the bed, dragged the soft sheets up around her, and fell asleep, telling the loud and whirling thoughts in her head to go to hell.


	6. The Debriefing

**Backtrack to Roy's point of view that night, and what he heard - and deduced - in the Watchtower. This is a shortie, but I'm sure people just want to get back to the good stuff, so they shouldn't mind a little 1k technical chapter.**

* * *

_**The Debriefing**_

"Red Arrow."

He'd just been patrolling the usual haunts of the city's pimps and dealers, musing about cell phones and morning sex and embarrassing photos and pesto sauce and teasing black eyebrows, when Roy's comm link went off in his ear.

"Yeah?"

"You're needed at the Watchtower."

* * *

It was a veritable gathering that Roy walked into, still shaking thoughts of Jade's homecoming - he hadn't imagined how _quiet _it would've been without her now, after the weeks of sharing the apartment with her - but he was almost instantly sobered by the seriousness that permeated the group. Batman, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Zatanna, Red Tornado, Superboy, and Nightwing all turned towards him as he entered the Watchtower through the zeta tubes. None of them even blinked at the flash of white light.

"Good," Batman said as Roy joined their half-circle around one of the holographic screens. "We can start."

Nightwing stepped forwards. "As we all know, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum formally commenced more than a week ago in Vladivostok." With a swish of his hand, he pulled up a large image of the brand-new convention center, and twenty or thirty smaller images of serious-looking men and women of varied nationalities. "And this year, the APEC held special significance for Vietnam and South Korea."

"They were about to come to an accord after decades of feuding," Batman supplied, and with a few taps on a holographic type pad all the photos disappeared, save for two. "Prime ministers May Tung and Hoang have been on the verge of signing a pact that would effectively end hostilities."

"And they were supposed to cement it with South Korea providing discounted agricultural mechanization construction services in exchange for relief to ease South Korea's current famine so Vietnam can make the next hurdle towards economic and societal development," Roy rattled off, growing impatient with the current events report. They'd all heard this a hundred times before, had discussed the implications and gone over the difficulties in making this thing happen. "We know the story."

"I thought everything was going well?" Canary's brow was furrowed, and she looked from Batman to Nightwing questioningly. "It's a union that American diplomats have been encouraging for years. What happened?"

"It _was _going well," Nightwing agreed. "Until it wasn't."

"Just spit it out already," Superboy grumbled, his inconsiderable patience clearly stretched thin. "Who do we need to beat up?"

Beneath the black cowl, Batman's eyes narrowed. "We don't know."

"What we do know," Nightwing began again, as if there hadn't been any interruption, "is that the South Korean financial minister Shopong who's calling all the shots went into day three of the forum really freaked out. Well, _he _didn't go to the rest of the convention at all - he hopped back on a private jet for Seoul the night after the opening ceremonies, before the actual conference started. He left his assistants behind to make excuses and eventually decline the final paperwork for the trade agreement, which was publicized this evening."

Roy suddenly felt as if his stomach was sinking, though he couldn't tell why.

"So who's going to be working the construction and providing the start-up technology in Vietnam?" Zatanna asked, and as she did, something clicked.

"Lex Corps." Everyone turned to look at Roy. He crossed his arms roughly in front of his chest, glaring stonily ahead at the screen, a horrible sense of deja vu flooding through him. Superboy's fists clenched, and from his expression it was a good thing he didn't have heat vision - otherwise, Luthor would want to be wary about looking his clone-son in the eye again.

"Yes." Nightwing looked surprised. "Luthor _graciously _stepped up from the American camp at APEC and offered his private support to Vietnam _and _to South Korea. He's reportedly started gathering supplies to ship across the Pacific in response to the famine."

"Meaning two more countries - one significantly more powerful and successful as a world power already, and the other an undeniably promising emerging market - are under the thumb of Luthor's political influence." If Batman's scowl could have become any more pronounced, it would have. "But whatever happened, it was very sudden, and recent." He turned to the screen and brought up a carefully ordered schedule of dates, times, hotels, conference halls, and a list of highlighted priorities. "Going off the itinerary for the forum, Red Tornado and I have figured the disturbance to have occurred seven days ago. And since the required background checks on all personnel present all came up clean, we suspect the catalyst came from an undercover agent."

"The most likely time for infiltration would have been twelve to fourteen days ago," Red Tornado supplied.

Roy stiffened, and the vague suspicions that had been forming in his mind came to a piercing head.

Twelve days... twelve days ago would put Jade - on a mysterious mission that she'd disclosed next to nothing about - right at the beginning of the APEC participants' arrival in Vladivostok, amidst all the bustle and confusion of important people in an unfamiliar place. It would've been easy - probably a piece of cake - for her to slip into the ministers' and committee heads' and economic advisors' entourages, unnoticed, without questions; just a late arrival from such-and-so's office. Her Vietnamese heritage and - Roy grit his teeth - _eleven _languages would have made her the prime agent for the job. And he knew from experience how charming she could be when she wanted to.

She'd said "coercion" when he'd asked what Cheshire had been up to. Going off the results of the botched trade agreement, _coercion _seemed to fit nicely betewen the lines.

Roy swore silently to himself. All those people. All those years of diplomacy. Lost to Luthor and his dirty money and influence, probably laying plans right now for funding underground nuclear weapons manufacturing and creating off-shore bank accounts for his supervillain buddies to hide their cash made off thievery and murder.

Ralaysia all over again, minus the peace treaty and good feelings. And, like always, there was no way to punish the billionaire skinhead, because it was _all legal_.

The most painful part - the part that snarled and bit at him, let a cold, angry feeling in his stomach - was that all of this had come to pass because of Jade.

He took a zeta tube straight back to Star City after Batman adjourned the meeting with a promise of a follow-up briefing to assess the damage and decide on a course of action. He shook off Dinah's concerned hand on his shoulder, ignored Ollie's bald questions, and strode straight past Nightwing and Superboy for the tubes.

* * *

Betrayal, hurt, disappointment, regret - they were all balling up, fusing together to form a shaking rage as he stalked up to his building, hardly remembering to stay out of the pools of light from the streetlamps because he was still in costume and it wasn't even after midnight.

He'd thrown open the door, and she was standing there - like she hadn't been for twelve days, and the roiling anger inside him steeled itself against her wide eyes and bemused and guilty look.

He'd yelled at her. She'd yelled back. He'd stormed back off into the night, unable to be in the same room with her and needing to be moving, active. He pursued a crowbar-wielding burglar with vigor, probably roughed him up more than was necessary - at least those impact arrows were non-lethal - imagining that it was Luthor, or Ra's Al Guhl, or Cheshire herself he was apprehending. He imagined he shot straight through the infuriatingly cool and impassive grinning mask. Anything to sate the snarling beast threatening to swallow him.

It wasn't until dawn that he finally made for home, and even though she would've been asleep anyway, the silence was so familiarly complete that he knew Jade was long gone.

* * *

**For those who care: this year, Vladivostok (Russia, Pacific-side) will host the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, a symposium for 21 Pacific Rim countries that works to promote economic cooperation in the region. South Korea and Vietnam are both participants: South Korea is ranked twelfth in the world in purchasing power parity (technique for ranking the value of world currencies), and since the 1960s, construction has been a main export industry, along with farm mechanization in the last two decades; Vietnam, however, despite the rate of its economy's recent growth, is struggling to make the transition from a low-tech agricultural society to a more developed and sophisticated country. The other elements of the conflict - the (unexplained) hostility between the two countries, the arrangement between construction tycoons and the Vietnamese government - I made up.**


	7. Pancakes and Wine

**And back to Jade. If this chapter seems choppy, it's because I rushed into it without a plan. Hopefully it doesn't show too much. Even if it doesn't, here's me apologizing for a shoddily-constructed installment. Also, if this is a little more Wally/Artemis-centric than people were expecting, oh, well, tough. I'd be writing way more for them if I had a better sense of humor. **

**P.S. Couldn't think of a better title. Might change it later.**

**P.P.S. No, all these updates are NOT new chapters - I just keep finding stupid typos in the text.**

* * *

_**Pancakes and Wine**_

Jade woke up to a tall redhead staring at her from the doorway, and she smiled sleepily into her pillow.

"This is weird."

Wrong redhead.

"I made pancakes, if you want breakfast."

She grumbled something unintelligible, and the boy disappeared, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

Despite her concentrated efforts, further sleep eluded her, and Jade dragged herself out of the comfortable but terribly empty bed. The house was so small that there really wasn't anywhere else for her to end up but the kitchen.

It was small but clean, though not half so orderly as Roy's. Jade noticed the boxes of cereal on the counter, the few dirty dishes piled in the sink, and the bottles of cheap wine lined up against the toaster with a reluctant smile. Wally, the boyfriend, dressed casually in shorts and a T shirt, was busying himself with flipping pancakes off an enormous griddle and onto a platter that already held a massive amount of the golden-brown circles.

He looked up when she entered, caught the last hints of her smile, and returned it with a grin of his own. His eyes were _very _green.

"That's quite the breakfast," she said slowly, eyeing the growing mound of pancakes. "Expecting company?"

"Nah. This is just how much I eat." He demonstrated by grabbing a fork and proceeding to shovel the pancakes into his mouth at an alarming speed.

Jade stepped back, lip curling up in disgust.

Wally watched her with amusement twinkling in his forest-green eyes. "Yeah, yeah, it's gross. I've heard it a million times," he told her when he came back up for air. He handed her a plate, plopped two perfectly-shaped pancakes down in the center of it, and passed her the syrup.

She took them to the scuffed little table and ate, tentatively, at first, but they proved to be delicious. Wally came and sat next to her with his own towering plate.

"Artemis says pancakes are the only edible things I can cook," he told her after a few moments of silence, for no particular reason. When her only reply was to cut off another piece of her pancake with her fork and scoop it into her mouth, he went on by himself. "She's at the gym a few blocks away. She teaches kickboxing to kids." He laughed to himself around a big bite. "You know, she thinks she's horrible with kids, but I swear there isn't a single one of her students who doesn't love her."

Jade sighed grumpily as she reached for the syrup and poured more onto her last half of pancake. She didn't know what time it was, but she had just gotten out of bed. Didn't this guy ever shut up? "Why are you telling me this?"

He grabbed up his now-empty plate and, with a gust of displaced air, zoomed to the sink so quickly that she flinched in surprise. "I don't know." He turned towards her, leaning against the counter, and there was an odd look in his eye. He shrugged. "Nobody mentioned it the other night, but I guess I thought you might want to know what your sister's been up to this whole time."

Jade looked down at her plate, fighting off a sudden pang of guilt. She knew she'd never been much of a sister, but to be told as much by this boyish bottomless pit of breakfast who so obviously knew Artemis better than she did, was almost like a slap to the face. She warded off the impulse to tell him to fuck off, or sever the flow of blood to his brain with her index finger to the vein on his neck.

It wouldn't exactly be a sisterly bonding moment when Artemis came back to find Jade had assaulted her boyfriend. Her nosy and overly-chatty boyfriend, but still.

"You can just dump your stuff in the sink when you're done." Wally sped out of the kitchen and was back before she could take another bite, a backpack hanging over one shoulder. "I have to go work in the lab, but Artemis should be back in two hours." He paused awkwardly by the front door. "I guess you could... I don't know. Hang out?" She figured he must be thinking of all those times they'd fought, costumed, and she'd kicked his ass. "Uh. There's more food in the fridge, books, video games and... stuff."

Jade was suddenly reminded of a month ago, when a very different redhead had left her alone in his home for the first time. Her gut wrenched painfully - from the too-syrupy pancakes, she was sure. "Yeah. I'll... hang out."

Wally nodded and tossed out a quick "Bye, then" before dashing out the door.

She looked around her at the empty little house. Big TV, squashy-looking couch, textbooks and notebooks piled all over the place. No other furniture, besides what was in the kitchen; old table, four chairs, including the one she was sitting on. No wall decorations except smatterigs of photos of the two, Artemis and Wally, and friends, tacked or taped all along the walls and the refrigerator, and a few unframed posters; Albert Einstein, The Beatles, the Flash - signed in Sharpie, and with what looked like a whole letter written in a quick, slanted hand off to the side - and one of _Alice in Wonderland_.

It wasn't the same as the one Jade had left behind in that shit apartment in Gotham all those years ago, but the sight of it still made her shiver.

* * *

She was lying on the bed again, willing herself not to touch the black phone that was taunting her from on top of one of her duffel bags, when Artemis came back.

The younger girl stood in the doorway, watching her sister mope with a cocked head. "Get up," she said after a moment, and turned to make her way down the short hallway. Jade snorted into the pillow that held the imprint of her head on it. Artemis reappeared with one of the wine bottles from the kitchen. "Come on," she encouraged, coming over and throwing the covers to the foot of the bed. "Put some clothes on. We're going to the beach."

This was why Jade had never bothered to come to California before - everyone was disgustingly happy in the incredibly warm October weather. People were still in bikinis and shorts, running in and out of the water, eating snow cones and drinking margaritas from the flashy street vendors on the boardwalk.

Jade hated margaritas.

She followed Artemis, not at all put out by the endless masses of beach-going airheads, laughing and joking and flirting. When a group of skater boys stopped to wolf-whistle at them, Jade gave them a killer look that actually made them hop back onto their stupid boards with wheels and push themselves further down the beach.

Artemis rolled her eyes.

They stopped when they reached a quieter corner of the beach. There weren't any screaming little kids running through the sand or horny teenagers making out on blankets. Artemis sat in the scant shade under a little group of palm trees, and patted the sand beside her for Jade.

The idea of sand in the pockets of her jeans for all time wasn't appealing, but Jade sat anyway.

Her sister pulled the wine bottle out of her slouchy shoulder bag and popped the cork out, taking a short swig before offering it to Jade. She took it - and a large sip - without any further encouragement.

"So why are you here?"

Questioning gray eyes turned and examined her closely. She tipped the bottle to her lips again. It was horrible - probably cost less than six bucks - but she really did not want to remember having this conversation later.

"It's not like you were ever interested in having a sister before. Why now? Why a few days after I _accidentally _found out you're sleeping with one of my good friends?" There was no ignoring the hurt in the girl's voice. Artemis had never been good at hiding her emotions.

Jade sighed and relinquished the bottle, touching a dainty hand to her lips and looking out over the sand to the ocean. It sparkled in the afternoon sun. "I was coming back from a job when you and your little boyfriend were there."

Artemis' eyes hardened, but she didn't interrupt.

"Roy got really mad about it."

Silence.

"That's it?" Golden eyebrows were raised skeptically. "You came all the way here just because you two had a fight?"

Jade shrugged.

"You could've gone back to your apartment, or to a hotel, or anywhere."

She didn't reply.

Artemis let out a gush of irritated breath. "You know what, Jade? You're kind of an ass."

This shocked a laugh out of her. "You're not so bad yourself, sis."

* * *

A while and many sips later, the two sisters had made their way back to the house. They were both a just a tiny bit tipsy, and as Artemis made for the kitchen to rifle through the fridge, Jade began squinting at the photos on the walls.

One of the clusters seemed to have all been taken on the same day - Wally and Artemis were wearing the same clothes in all of the shots. On a scrap of paper taped at the top, someone had scrawled _MOVE-IN DAY_. One photo showed the two sitting in the old Chrysler, the windows blocked out with cardboard boxes and the kitchen table tied to the roof of the car, grinning excitedly at whoever held the camera. Another was a picture of Artemis in the act of unlocking the front door, rolling her eyes as Wally snaked an arm around her waist and pressed his lips to her neck. The next of Artemis and a handsome and impressively cut younger-looking boy with jet-black hair struggling to carry the table up the long flight of steps to the door. Beside that, Wally sat on the bare tile floor of the kitchen, surrounded by boxes and chip bags as he stuffed fistfuls of Lays into his mouth. The next shot had a note scratched onto it in red pen: Wally and the younger guy, on their knees on the floor of the bedroom, surrounded by the wooden pieces and little bolts of a bedframe, scratching their heads and reaching for a paper instruction packet; the note said _My boys_, with a sloppy smiley face. The final photo of the bunch was a profile shot of Artemis pressing Wally against a bare wall and fisting her hands into the front of his shirt and kissing him fiercely, interrupted by a close-up of the black-haired kid in the foreground, grinning as he held the camera up and angled slightly over his shoulder towards the two.

"Wow," Jade drawled, telling herself that she was _not _jealous of her little sister, and pointed to the photo bunch as Artemis glanced over. "Talk about sappy."

The golden-blonde rolled her eyes. "I'm sorry my happiness offends you. Not everybody has a dysfunctional relationship, you know."

She ignored the jibe, and with a wicked grin, Jade sauntered across the room to lean against the counter next to her sister, in the exact spot Wally had been that morning. "What a coincidence, by the way, that both our boyfriends are redheads." She paused, letting that sink in, and her grin grew wider. "So, how good is he in bed?"

Artemis slammed the fridge door, looking vexed. "Really, Jade? You want to try to compete with me in _boyfriends_?"

"Does that mean mine wins?"

Artemis threw her hands into the air in frustration. "No, it doesn't! Wally happens to be fantastic in bed. Plus," there was only a little bit of acid in her voice here, "_I've _never had to run away from home because of a stupid argument. So I think that gives us a few bonus points."

"Ouch, sis," Jade said with a dramatic wince. It helped mask the real flinch. "I was only trying to have a sisterly conversation with you."

"Yeah, yeah," Artemis grumbled, and pulled a cell phone from her pocket. "I don't feel like making anything, so I'm ordering takeout. Anything you want?"

"Just get me something vegetarian."

She drifted towards the spare bedroom as Artemis barked out an order. Seeing her sister's cell phone put an itch into her own fingers, and when she reached the room, she closed the door quietly. For no reason, she felt like what she was about to do had to be kept secret.

Once the door was firmly closed - no lock, unfortunately - Jade lunged for her duffel and pulled out the phone she'd been studiously ignoring all day. She hadn't seen or heard it go off, but it had been almost a whole day since they'd argued, and she had to know.

With a deep breath and a ridiculously pounding heart - probably just a result of the wine - she tapped the screen, and it blinked to life.

_ Unopened message: Roy._

It was from that morning, before she'd woken up. Still not breathing, and having absolutely no idea what she was expecting it to say, she tapped it open.

_ Not even a note this time?_


	8. I Will If You Will

**Yes, this is teeny-tiny, but I was scribbling madly away in my little notebook in bed and have to get this out of my mind before sleep will indulge me. Don't worry, more to come - eventually. This should hold everyone over the weekend.**

* * *

_**I Will If You Will**_

He came for her the next day.

She was flowing through her yoga poses - confined to the guest room because Artemis didn't want Wally to see her sister in the little sports bra and spandex shorts she'd brought in her duffel bag - when the doorbell rang, and even though she hadn't responded to his text and she had no view of the street from her room, she knew it was him.

She managed to stay put - despite the building urge to go to him - until Artemis opened the door and came in, arms crossed over her chest and eyes an irritating mix of exasperation, amusement, and relief. "Jade, Roy's outside."

Slowly, Jade bent over backwards, laying her palms flat on the floor, before letting out her cool response.

"I'll be there in a minute."

From her position, she didn't catch Artemis' eyeroll.

He was leaning on the rail of the little porch, chatting with Wally, who was laughing around a mouthful of fish crackers. Sky-blue eyes connected with hers the instant she emerged from the house, almost as if he'd been counting the down the seconds to her arrival.

Wally mumbled some excuse about homework and went inside, closing the door discreetly behind him.

They looked at each other for a moment. Roy, arms crossed in front of his chest, hair just as red as the picture she had certainly _not _gazed at for ten minutes on her phone the night before, looking more casual than she'd ever seen him in shorts and a T shirt with a little v-neck. Just as sexy as always. His brow was furrowed, but she knew he was drinking in the sight of her, too.

She hadn't bothered to put any more clothes on, and her hair was still in the loose bun she'd slept in all night. She watched him, hands perched challengingly on her hips, waiting for him to speak first.

Eventually, he did.

"Why did you move in with me?"

It was not at all what she'd thought he'd say.

She cocked an eyebrow, not losing an iota of composure. "More convenient for sex."

He shook his head. "Not good enough, Jade."

They were never supposed to have this conversation. It was not part of the plan.

"What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me the truth, for once."

"You want the truth?" She hoped he hadn't heard the tremble in her voice, but she was barreling forwards before she could stop herself. "Truth is, Red, you're the only guy who's ever asked me to stay since I was sixteen and ran away from the hellhole I grew up in."

There was a pause as he processed this and she stared at his shoulder, inwardly cursing herself in every language she knew and wishing with her entire being that they could just go back to the times where they would greet each other by tearing one another's clothes off. She hadn't meant to say any of that -

But then she was pulled into a crushing hug, her face shoved hard against his chest and his arms locked tightly around her waist and neck, and he smelled like his generic-brand laundry detergent and the sharp scent of the oil cleaner he used on his bow and like their bedroom. Before she could think, before she could imagine what Artemis and Wally were thinking - she could feel them watching, maybe listening, through the kitchen window - before she could catch a breath, her arms wound themselves around his waist and she was pressing into him because it felt right and she didn't give a shit about the rest.

She couldn't help thinking, though, that this was their first non-sexual embrace.

He held her like that for a while, only clenching his arms tighter every time she tried to pull away - about every five seconds - and pressed his cheek against the top of her head.

"You've really got to stop ditching me in the middle of the night," he said into her hair.

She made an irritated noise. "I will if you will."

It wasn't supposed to be a promise, but when Roy finally stepped back, there was a thoughtful glint in his eye.

"We'll see."


	9. The Talk

**I no longer plan these chapters out. Apologies for shoddy craftsmanship. And if this no longer feels like Roy and Jade, well, I blame Cartoon Network for taking summer hiatuses. **

* * *

_**The Talk**_

Jade hadn't noticed it when she'd gone outside to meet Roy - there had been more important things on her mind - but there was a spectacularly expensive-looking car parked on their side of the street in front of Wally and Artemis' house. Low to the ground, with black tinted windows, and a paint job of a brilliant emerald green, it was probably the most aerodynamic vehicle Palo Alto had ever seen.

"So," Artemis said in the kitchen, where the four had congregated for banana smoothies after the older pair had come back inside the house and the grinding whine of the blender had been put to rest. "Ollie let you borrow the car?"

Roy took a very long sip from his glass. "Not exactly."

The younger girl quirked a golden eyebrow. "Bet he'll be ecstatic when he finds out you stole his Lamborghini."

He frowned. "Borrowed."

"By the way," Wally broke in, and Jade swore his ears perked up as he bounced forward like an eager little kid. "Could I have a look at that? They only let us play with blenders and stuff in my high school motors and engineering class, but there was this diagram I saw once of a V-12 engine - "

"Don't even think about it."

* * *

In an unexpected burst of camraderie, they all decided to go to dinner before Roy and Jade left. Or rather, Wally decided that his "fuel tank" was empty, and that it was high time he spent some hard-earned money on the best pizzas the San Francisco Bay had to offer. They'd piled into the Chrysler - Roy had downright refused to drive the Lamborghini into a public parking lot - with the sisters bullying their way into the driver's and passenger's seats, ignoring Wally's fervent calls on shotgun. Artemis drove them to a tiny joint where the owner knew them and came out from the back to greet them personally, pumping Wally's hand in admiration and with a tear in his eye before rushing back to the kitchen, shouting something about firing up all the ovens.

The group slid into the only booth in the restaurant, bickering about which pizzas to get, and for a moment Jade was disconcerted at how _normal _it all felt. Until Kid Calories tried to order bacon on all of them. When they'd settled on four - no concern about leftovers, because Wally would eat anything that wasn't specifically claimed within moments of being set down - they lapsed into an awkwared silence, felt by all except the dark house guest.

"It's about time you came for me, anyways," Jade said, breaking the silence and flashing a feline grin at the burlier redhead beside her. "These kids are insufferably mushy around each other." She cupped her chin with one hand and made a face at the two across the table from them. Artemis stuck her tongue out at her.

Roy chuckled, but as he did the younger boy's eyes grew dramatically wide. He turned to the blonde beside him on the seat and threw his arms around her, burying his face into her neck and fake-sobbing.

"Artemis," he cried with heaving shoulders. "I love you so much! Don't leave me for a weekend ever again!"

Tan arms snaked their way around his waist, and she clutched him to her. "Oh, Wally, that's all I needed to hear! Let's borrow someone's flashy car, because your manhood is sorely underrepresented and we're insecure about our love!"

"Shut up," Jade and Roy snapped together while Artemis and Wally snickered into their sodas.

They ate their pizzas - they really were delicious - and drove back to the Crock-West residence in the darkening twilight. Roy followed Jade into the guest room and watched as she threw the few things she'd brought back into her duffel bags, and trailed after her when she brought them to the front hall and dumped them by the door. Artemis was at the table, already surrounded by stacks of books and tapping quickly away on a sleek white laptop. Beside her, Wally was flipping unconvincingly through a stiff tome of Vietnamese war poetry. He grinned at his friend.

"Leaving?"

"Don't sound so put out," Roy said gruffly, shouldering the two bags Jade had just dropped to the ground.

"You really know how to hurt a girl's feelings," Jade reprimanded teasingly.

Wally shrugged good-naturedly. "Nothing personal. I'm just jazzed that we'll get to have sex again." He yelled in protest when Artemis socked him in the shoulder.

Jade, ignoring both her sister's violence and Roy's pronounced discomfort, smirked. "I _knew_ Wallace had to be a screamer."

To avoid an all-out brawl, the bag-laden archer ushered Jade out the door, called something over his shoulder into the house, and was trudging to the car parked on the street before any more taunts or blows could be exchanged. Always the hero.

Jade let out a low whistle as she opened the passenger door to the Lamborghini and slipped inside. "Wow, Red. This is some ride."

The black interior was just as sleek as the emerald body on the outside. Molded black leather seats were set low into the car, and the light from the dash made everything glow red.

Roy shrugged, swinging into the driver's seat beside her. "Belongs to an old friend."

"Right. _Ollie_."

He didn't expound upon this _old friend_, and Jade didn't push. She would find out eventually. They drove in silence for a long time, listening to the quiet hum of the engine and the low roll of rubber on asphalt. They were speeding along the highway, weaving in and out of traffic, Roy's grip never relaxing on the wheel as he looked stonily ahead, anticipating the next opening in neighboring lanes. With nothing better to do, Jade dozed, leaning her black hair back against the curved head rest.

She must have really fallen asleep, because when she next opened her eyes, the red lines of the clock on the dash board read 2:18.

"How long is this drive, anyway?" she asked sleepily, stretching her arms up above her head and curling them behind the seat, relishing the tug of the muscles over her rib cage after sitting for so long.

Roy glanced at the clock. Dark circles that she hadn't noticed before tugged at the skin under his eyes. "We should be home in about four hours."

That didn't seem right. They'd left California at six, and Star City was two thousand miles away. But a twelve hour drive - however impossible it might seem for such a vast distance - was _really _impractical.

"Why didn't you just take a plane?"

He glanced over at her in the dim red glow. The car stayed exactly in the center of the deserted highway lane. "I don't like flying when I can get around it."

"Hmm. Red Arrow is afraid of airplanes."

"I'm not _afraid_. It's just not my preferred mode of - "

"When was the last time you slept?" She really didn't care about his phobias and denials. But the hour tally of this little road trip - assuming the first leg had taken the same amount of time - put his departure from Star City sometime around midnight the night before he showed up in Palo Alto, twenty-four hours after she'd left. Those circles were looking bigger and heavier by the second.

Roy glanced at her again, an odd expression and the flush from the dash making his face look even more angular. "I don't know. Friday morning, maybe." He paused for half a second too long, and Jade knew that he was suddenly flashing back to that morning - before either of them had said any of the things that had led to this cross-country retrieval - just like she was. He frowned. "Why?"

She didn't answer.

* * *

He dropped her off in front of their building, said something about bringing the car back to Ollie's, and sped away into the lightening morning, green car appearing almost black in the pre-sunrise glint on the horizon. Jade let herself into the building and made her way to the third floor. It wasn't until she was in the apartment that she was overcome with an intense tiredness. Dropping her bags on the floor, she made for the bedroom and collapsed on top of the sheets, clothes and all, and fell asleep with the comforting smell of home flooding her mind.

* * *

For the first time in a while, Roy took the day off from work. He didn't bother to call in - in all likelihood, no one would notice, or care, if he didn't show.

When he finally woke up, it was to the steady thrum of rain pattering against the window, and a bodiless grey light flooded the room. He rolled over with the intention of getting a better view of the clock, but instead of bumping into the body he'd fallen asleep next to, there was only an empty pillow.

"Are you fucking serious?" he growled and sprang out of bed, rushing through the doorway.

But she was just sitting at the counter, thin hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee, reading a book. She didn't even look surprised when he practically sprinted into the room and rocked backwards on his heels to stop himself when he found her there.

"Still here, Red," she said with a hint of a smile, and returned her gaze to her book. Her black hair was wet and pinned into a knot on top of her head, and she was wrapped in a satin bathrobe under an afghan he couldn't remember seeing before.

"Yeah, well, it's not like it would be the first time or anything." His voice was more rough than he'd intended. Probably from just waking up after a sleepless weekend.

When Jade looked back up at him, her dark eyes were flashing, but with what, he couldn't say.

"I _can _and _will _leave whenever I want."

Roy's hand curled into a fist at his side. The words cut through him like a knife, and he hated it. "I think I've discovered that for myself by now."

She closed her book. "You don't own me, Roy."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

So they were going to do this right now. He supposed it was inevitable.

"It means that I have a life that doesn't entirely consist of you!" She half-slammed her mug down on the counter. "It means that I can't drop everything because you want me to."

"'Drop everything'?" He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You're an assassin! You steal and murder for money." He covered his eyes with one hand, pressing back the headache he could feel coming on, not wanting to see her narrowed eyes and the defensive squaring of her shoulders. It was making him shy away from what he wanted - needed - to say.

When he removed his hand, it was to find her staring at him, expression unreadable.

"You _could _drop it," he said quietly, and watched as she paused for a moment before unfurling herself from her seat on the bar stool and walking slowly around the counter to him, never severing their eye contact. He would've tried to back away - he had more to tell her, he didn't _want_ to be distracted just yet - but he was cornered by the tiny kitchen and the inescapable pull Jade had for him. She stepped right up into him, close enough that their bodies were touching, and as she slid a hand - still hot from holding her coffee cup - up his shoulder and around his neck, pulling him down to meet his lips with hers, he couldn't shake the feeling that she was trying to tell him something, too.

* * *

Later, when the rain outside had picked up and they were lying entwined on the bed under extra blankets to keep warm, Jade traced imaginary designs onto his shoulder. For a long while, he kept his eyes closed - not trying to sleep, just reveling in the gentle skating of her fingertips on his skin. The fact that she was so rarely gentle with anything only made the sensation sweeter.

"The Shadows make sure we come back," she told him, and her husky voice was even lower than usual, as if she were afraid someone was listening.

The arm that was around her back, holding her against his chest, tightened under the covers. Roy felt his mouth twist into a frown.

"They have special... punishments for deserters," she continued, her fingers still etching invisible lines into his shoulder. "They can find me if they want to." Despite her attempts at making her tone sound casual, Roy heard the slight wobble when she said _find me_.

She was frightened.

Eyes still closed - somehow, everything felt more private when he blotted out the world - he lifted his free hand and brought Jade's doodling fingers to his lips. He was reminded of a time several weeks ago when he had done the same thing and she had made fake gagging noises.

This time, she let him kiss her fingers without teasing.

"I think we can take them," he said against her palm. And when he finally opened his eyes, they were captured by the burning look Jade was giving him.

"Maybe."


	10. Birthday

_**Birthday**_

A quiet week passed. Neither Jade or Roy mentioned their fight, or the drive from California, or the half-conversation they'd had the day they came back, but neither of them could forget. Both avoided bringing any of it up, avoided things that could even _lead _to bringing it up. They hadn't exactly reconciled, but they weren't running halfway across the country, either. He was glad for the latter, but he didn't know what he could do or say to alleviate the tension. Every time he tried to formulate something to open with, he would be overrun with that hard frustration, and he'd grab his bow and quiver, throw on the red and black, and rush out the door to vent on punks who weren't quick enough to escape him.

Undeniably, the silence made him uneasy. _The quiet before the storm_.

* * *

On Saturday morning, something unusual arrived in the mail with his newspapers and bills.

"You've got something," he informed Jade back in the apartment, and dropped the thick yellow packaging envelope onto her lap. She looked up in surprise - and suspicion - from her spot on the couch.

"What's this?" She picked it up gingerly, as if expecting it to explode if she gripped it too tightly, and examined it with an untrusting glint in her eye.

Roy shrugged.

She glanced up at him. Was that nervousness? "I don't have any friends. I don't get mail. Nobody knows I live here."

He rolled his eyes. The Shadows couldn't possibly know about them - she'd been on a mission for them a little more than a week ago. "Relax. It has a California postmark."

Instead of opening it like a normal person after learning that it probably wasn't from her twisted-ninja crime boss, Jade put the envelope down on the coffee table. "What month is it again?"

"October."

"The date?"

"Thirtieth. Why?"

She leaned back into the couch cushions, drawing her legs up and crossing them carefully, taking a steadying breath.

This was weird. He snatched the package from the table and sat beside her. "Jade, what is it?"

Turning to him with a small smile - why did it look so sad? - she took the envelope from his fingers. "Today's my birthday."

Definitely not what he'd thought she'd say.

"Uh. Okay."

They considered each other for a moment, her dark eyes watching him closely, not giving anything away, and Roy had the feeling that they were playing chicken. He was dying to ask about the melancholy smile, but absolutely sure she wouldn't tell.

"Aren't you going to ask how old I am?" Her smirk was pronounced.

It's not like he hadn't wondered before. The Vietnamese in her gave her flawless skin, betraying no lines or wrinkles for him to go by, making her age impossible to guess. But he'd always known she was Artemis' _older _sister, and since they hadn't gotten together until after Wally and Megan and Zatanna had thrown the Crock girl a killer nineteenth birthday bash - the memories of which still sometimes horrified him - Roy had never worried about statutory rape. And he had never met anyone _less _innocent than Jade Nguyen.

Still, he was curious.

"How old are you?"

She leaned in, and for a second he forgot his question - she could _still _do that to him - as her full lips filled his vision. She pressed them sweetly against his, and his fingers closed around thin air as the package was yanked from his grip. "Today? Twenty-six."

She stood, pushing him back a little, long bare legs poking out from the sweatshirt she'd taken from his drawer - it must be laundry day - and made for the knife block in the kitchen to slit the envelope with. There was a time when Roy would have tensed and reached for the collapsible bow he used to carry on his person at the sight of her picking up weapons, but that time was well past. The thought of her using the knives against him didn't even cross his mind.

With a fluid motion and satisfying ripping sound, she slit the thick envelope open and dumped the contents on the counter. "That doesn't upset you, does it, Red?"

"What, that you're twenty-six?"

"That I'm older than you."

Roy frowned. So she was. "No. Why would that matter?"

She shrugged and held up the thin DVD case that had come out of the package. _Alice in Wonderland_, with some kind of Asian writing around the sides. "Huh. My baby sister remembered my favorite kid movie. How sweet."

He got up off the couch and came to stand on the opposite side of the counter. "There's a note." Before Jade could beat him to it, though he was sure she could've stopped him if she wanted, he seized the piece of paper beside what was left of the envelope. "'Happy birthday, Chesh. Saw this in Chinatown the other day, couldn't resist. _Love_,'" Roy blinked, probably putting too much emphasis on that last word, "'Artemis.' Then Wally wrote 'and your favorite brother-in-law' with some kind of crap picture of him hugging you with your mask on. I _think_."

She peered over his arm at the paper and surprised him with a sigh. "That kid is never going to let up."

* * *

For some unfathomable reason, Jade didn't want to do anything -_ If I wanted anything special, I would've told you when my birthday was _- but it was non-negotiable. He'd called in a last-minute reservation at Dinah's favorite restaurant in the city, made sure the birthday girl had picked out something nice for that evening, and was getting ready to jump in the shower when Roy's phone went off.

_ Call from: Grayson_

"Dick?" He couldn't keep the surprise from his voice.

"Not busy tonight, are you?"

"Uh." He glanced through the bedroom door. Jade was curled up on the couch, watching the cartoon Alice interrupting the Vietnamese version of the Unbirthday song. "I am, actually. What is it?"

"I need to see you." On the other end, Dick paused. "Both of you."

He frowned. "Both of who?"

"Roy, I know."

_Shit_.

"Wally called me. He's not very good at keeping secrets."

His grip tightened around the phone. "What do you want?"

"I just want to talk. Meet me at your locker in Star."

"No, I have - "

"It has to be tonight."

* * *

Despite her previous aversion to birthday celebrations, Jade seemed disappointed when Roy told her they'd have to postpone dinner and go to the grungy industrial side of town instead - although she did seem curious when he mentioned his storage locker and Nightwing.

"So Wally told on us," she smirked. They were walking, bundled up against the chill blowing in from the lake, and it was already dark. "Some brother-in-law."

"He's an idiot. I should've guessed this would happen sooner or later." He swallowed his sigh and they walked the rest of the way in silence.

Nightwing was leaning against the side of the storage unit, masked eyes roving ceaselessly through the night. He spotted them before they were close enough to greet. Roy thought there might have been a ghost of a grin tugging at the corners of the younger boy's mouth.

They all remained silent until Roy had unlocked the door and they had all stepped inside. He flipped the light switch on the wall beside the door handle. The shelves of arrows, bins of parts, and backup bows and quivers were old news to the archer and the ex-Robin, but Jade's eyes widened just enough for him to notice. He briefly felt a touch of pride - almost ten years in the hero business had left him with an impressive array of equipment.

"Hey, I know you," Jade said after the door was closed. She was peering up into Nightwing's masked face with a mixture of recognition and amusement. The hero raised an invisible eyebrow. "You're in the pictures on my sister's wall."

To Roy's surprise, Dick actually smiled - a real smile, not just the hint of one.

"And I know you, Jade Nguyen."

If she hadn't been expecting him to know her name, she didn't show it.

Roy crossed his arms impatiently. "Now that you two are acquainted," he interrupted gruffly, "maybe you can tell us what you want?"

Posture unreadable, Dick considered his old friend for a moment, and if Roy didn't know better, he would've thought the guy was struggling to find the right words.

"I don't know what your plans are," he said in a carefully measured voice. "But you both have to know the compromising position this puts Red Arrow, the Team, the whole Justice League in, and that you - we - can't accept that kind of risk."

Before he could go on, before Jade could react, before Roy could even think about what he was about to say, a deep scowl twisted his face and he barked out, "Forget about it, _Dick_. We're not breaking up just because the Bat detectives want us to."

Glaring into the impassive domino mask that was threatening him, Roy missed Jade's smirk.

Nightwing, hardly looking surprised at Roy's outburst, glanced between the couple, and he seemed deep in thought. "You're sure about this?" he asked after a moment, and Roy nodded firmly. He didn't need to think twice about it. Dick let out a long breath that ended with a grin. "Okay. But if you're going to do this right, you're going to need my help."

* * *

_ Six weeks later:_

"Where's Cheshire?"

Black Spider, Icicle Jr., and Hook were weaving and bobbing, running through the inventors' labs of the New Mexico Institute of Technology and Engineering, dodging the pesky mini Justice League as they pursued the villains through the dark halls of the vast warehouse-like space.

"She was supposed to find the drill," Icicle shouted over his shoulder, dropping into a roll and firing a blast of ice behind him at Superboy. Damn, missed.

Hook propelled the great mass of steel out of his forearm, aiming for the little green boy, gorilla, lion, whatever he was, but shattered a glass case of engineering trophies instead as the lion shrank into a lime green parakeet. "We have to get the fuck out of here. This was a trap."

They found her outside. Lying splayed out on the ground, unmoving, in a pool of blood, loose black mane matted around her head, with a long red arrow protruding from her chest.

"Oh, hell," Icicle swore, and looked away.

Black Spider crouched down next to her - careful not to step in the blood - and looked as if he were going to grab her wrist. "They actually killed her," he said, not believing. "I thought heroes weren't supposed to kill?"

All of their heads jerked up at the sound of pounding feet coming from the lab.

"Time to go," Hook growled. "Leave her."

Without another glance, the three sprinted for the getaway van they'd parked around the corner.


	11. New Name

**The structure of this chapter is different: the italicized dialogue are the instructions Nightwing gives Roy and Jade that night in the storage locker, and beneath each are little snippets of them carrying out or reacting to those instructions. No order, though they shouldn't be too vague to distinguish a rough timeline. Just trying something new here, at the tail end of our story. Let me know if it's as effective as I'm hoping it will be.**

* * *

**_New Name_**

_"One last job. You'll have to tell us everything."_

"Hook, the ice kid, and Black Spider."

"What's the objective?"

"Some drill thing."

Behind the mask, Nightwing gave Roy a look.

"Knock it off, Jade," Roy grunted. He could practically feel her stretching her legs, or cleaning dirt from under her nails, or watching TV. He would never fathom how she could be so casual about everything, all the time - especially when it was her life they were talking about. "You know we need everything you can tell us."

They were in the Cave, in a private conference room, he and Nightwing listening to the midnight phone call from Cheshire. Even thinking about what was to come made his heart pound, and she was giving them a hard time about the details.

The sound of her sigh filled the room. "It's not like they draw a diagram with footnotes or anything. Some kind of special mining drill, from a college in New Mexico. Al Guhl said it can carve sturdy tunnels and pits in record time."

Dick immediately began tapping away on his gauntlet computer. "Good. What time?"

"Day after tomorrow. Three AM. They have to prep the cargo plane."

They heard a low rustle. "I have to go," and the line went dead.

* * *

_"Roy, you'll have to design the arrow."_

He began working on it the next day, not wanting to waste any time. The Shadows could call whenever they wanted, regardless of their usual grace period for assassins between missions. Relying on patterns - especially those of enormous ninja-gangs who profit off the well-placed deaths of others - was how things got dangerous.

It was difficult; it took days to even find the right kind of adhesive. The first was too strong; when he tested it on a rubber dummy, he couldn't pry it off. The second type was too much like putty and wouldn't stick to clothing.

He also had concerns about firing straight at his girlfriend.

"The force of impact could easily shatter her ribs," he told Dick over the phone early one morning as he sat, head in his hands, on the couch, poring over the assorted arrowheads, shafts, and fletchings he had spread out over the coffee table. "Yeah, but I never aim for the heart. If a bone shard gets lodged there, she could bleed out before we can get her into a hospital, let alone leave her lying there long enough for the Shadows to see."

He must've been talking louder than he'd thought, because when he hid the End button and tossed the phone into the corner of the couch, his caught a glimpse in his periphery of Jade standing near the doorway to the bedroom, watching him.

"Not going too well?" she asked, as if they were discussing the weather and not how to keep her alive.

"You could say that." He rubbed his tired eyes.

She came and sat next to him, and in a rare show of affection - she didn't even like their hands touching when they weren't gliding along each other's bodies - leaned her dark head on his shoulder and wrapped her slender arms around his much thicker one. It was probably just because she hadn't truly woken up yet.

But if Roy thought this behavior was out of character, then the words that came out of her mouth soon after were a complete shock.

"I trust you, Red."

* * *

_"We'll need your blood. A lot of it."_

For obvious reasons, they couldn't go to a medical facility for the procedure, and the Cave was still out of the question. So twice in four weeks, Dick arrived at their apartment with a needle, tube, plastic pouch, medical tape, and bactericidal swabs and Jade would lie down on the couch and roll up her sleeve.

"I'm going to take twice the normal donor unit," he warned her. "It won't be harmful, but you'll feel like crap for a while."

She didn't put up a fight, but Roy frowned.

"Hold up. We're already violating donor code by taking twice in less than three months. Why push it?" He glanced worriedly down at Jade on the couch. She was looking up at him with unreadable eyes.

"We need enough to make her wound to look believable," Dick reminded him, and hooked the needle to the tube and the tube to the blood pouch. "And it has to be hers, in case somebody tries to investigate." Without any warning, he pricked the needle expertly into the thin blue protrusion in the crook of her elbow. She didn't even gasp. "But you might want to go get some cookies and juice or something."

When Roy returned to the apartment, toting a plastic shopping bag filled with a box of pink frosted sugar cookies and three cartons of juice, it was to find his old friend and his girlfriend chatting and laughing, Dick sitting on the floor and leaning against the coffee table, Jade still with the needle in her arm, looking only a little pale as her blood dripped into the clear pouch on the armrest. Blood extraction to fake a gory and painful death aside, the scene was... nice.

* * *

_"Somebody might try to check for a pulse."_

"Wow, Dick," Jade mused one afternoon when an unmasked Nightwing came through their door unannounced. He still sported black sunglasses, though; in seven years of knowing him, Roy had never seen his eyes. "When you commit to something, you really don't half-ass it."

The younger hero grinned. When he smiled like that, it really reminded Roy how young he was.

"It's a type of curare, a neurotoxin that will put you into a paralytic state." He twirled the reinforced vial in his long fingers, and Roy could practically feel the wink behind the black glasses. Always the show boy. "The paralysis will slow your heart rate down enough that you'll at least appear to be dying, if the person checking your pulse is doing it right."

Jade eyed it with a strange mixture of suspicion and interest. "Am I going to be brain damaged afterwards?"

"Nah. You should only have it in your system for fifteen, twenty minutes tops before Roy and I swoop in with the antidote. Any lasting cerebral effects don't occur for a few hours after ingestion."

She wrinkled her nose. "I have to drink that?"

Roy, sprawled on the couch, rolled his eyes. "You're going to be shot in the chest, paralyzed, left for dead by your cohorts, and the part you're worried about is downing the poison?"

As the bickering ensued, Dick strolled to the fridge with a strong sense of deja vu and pulled out the leftover papaya juice from last week's blood sucking, and as he poured himself a tall glass of the salmon-colored liquid, he wondered why all his friends were attracted by women they loved to antagonize, and vice versa. He wondered if the fact that they were sisters meant anything.

Probably.

* * *

_"Since the Shadows know you without the mask, Jade Nguyen will have to die, too."_

One day, a few weeks into the plan, Roy found a stiff manila envelope with his name printed on the front on top of his stack of daily newspapers in the mail room.

"Your death certificate came," he announced to Jade, who was just emerging from the bedroom, holding her head with one hand and looking absolutely exhausted. They'd stayed up late into the night, him working on the fake impact arrow - he still couldn't find a tip that would minimize any damage to her rib cage - and her re-watching _Alice in Wonderland_ for the fifth time since her birthday, and when the clock boasted two thirty, she'd tossed his arrow kit into the far corner of the room and torn off his shirt.

Their sex life was really beginning to suffer because of this plan.

She took one look at the opened envelope and turned right back around. "Can't talk about it now. Need more sleep first. See you tonight."

Roy glanced at the certificate in his hand and back to the open door of the bedroom. _Cause of death: criminal violence._

Maybe Cheshire would soon meet her bloody end, but he would be damned if it ever came to that for Jade.

* * *

_"You'll need a new name. I assume you have aliases?"_

Jade was tapping away on her cell phone, leaning against the counter. _Name shopping,_ she'd called it, since every phony driver's license, passport, and birth certificate she'd ever used had come from the Shadows themselves.

"How does Tatiana Bazinov sound?" she asked, interrupting the Roy's fervent chopping. He'd had the worst hankering for zucchini all week long.

"What?"

She scrutinized him over the phone, taking in his furrowed brow. "Tatiana Bazinov. After Jade is dead." Again, that ridiculous calm - as if she weren't discussing her own imminent demise. "I could pass for Asian-Russian, right?"

Roy glowered down at the vegetable he was hacking into bite-sized bits, as if it had suggested an Asian-Russian name to replace Jade's.

She waited for him to respond. He didn't.

"What about June Woods?" she thought aloud, and continued scrolling through internet pages on the phone. "Would it be too tacky to name myself 'Persephone' if my sister's name is Artemis?" She made a face. "Forget that. Too long. What about 'Eris?' Still tacky?"

Roy set the knife down on the cutting board with a slam. Jade finally stopped the constant stream of names, but looked almost bored by the interruption when he rounded on her.

"I like your name."

She quirked an eyebrow and she spoke slowly, as if to a child. "I can't disappear without a new name, Red."

"What if just your last name was different?"

Switching to defense mode, she crossed her arms over her chest. "Now you're trying to pick my new identity, too? I'm doing all of this for _you_, you know. You could be a little less of a control freak - "

"Marry me."

"What?"

They were staring at each other now, neither blinking, both absolutely taken aback. Roy didn't know that was where he'd been going with the last names.

But only a moment after he said it, he felt like this was what he wanted all along. The words felt true, and they immediately blotted out any embarrassment or panic or second thoughts. It seemed like the best - the only - option they'd ever left for themselves, since the night she stayed and every night since.

"Marry me. The Shadows don't know my secret identity. Your new name could be Jade Harper. They would never guess you would fake your own death to get married. It's perfect."

If he was so assured of what they had to do, she looked like she was about to bolt.

"Jade?"

Her dark eyes were wide, mouth gaping ever so slightly, and she stood as if frozen.

He stepped closer, slowly, as if she were a deer and sudden movements would frighten her off. "Jade." He reached out a hand and set it gently on her shoulder, reassured when she didn't flinch away or shrug him off. Cautiously, he let his thumb rest on the bare skin over her collar bone, and felt the rapid pulse flying through her veins.

"Jade."

The seconds ticked by. She wasn't even blinking.

"_Jade_!" Now her silence was just cruel. It wasn't as if he hadn't bared his heart to her or anything.

She took a shaky breath, eyes still wide as marbles, and just as shiny.

Were those _tears_?

"Aren't you supposed to be down on your knee or something?"

When the words finally came, Roy couldn't help laughing - even though it wasn't an explicit yes, it also wasn't a no. And when his hand slid from her shoulder up the curve of her neck and around the back of her head, the terror was gone from her eyes, and she was looking up at him with something very near to tenderness as he tipped her head up and bent down so their lips could meet.

He forgot all about the zucchini in the rumbling wave of warmth that washed through him at this kiss. It was all-consuming, the _happiness_ that rolled through him, and he threw himself completely into it, swiping his tongue yearningly against her soft bottom lip, savoring the feeling of her arms wrapping around his neck and kissing him back with the same intensity.

They fell asleep that night - Roy hadn't put on the spandex all day - with ragged breaths and his pinkie tracing slow rings around her fourth finger, unable to quench the excitement that had overflowed from him and into her.


	12. Epilogue

**All fluff. A sort of last hurrah for these two. The structure of this chapter is also different, but hopefully not too confusing. The present moments are them on the airplane, and the rest take place between the events of "Birthday" and now.**

**P.S. I let drunk Nell write the last few pages of this. I tried to comb through it and pick out all the senseless and raunchy parts, but if something managed to slip through the cracks, I apologize on behalf of my boozed-up self. Now soberly revised for typos and choppiness! Enjoy.**

* * *

**_Epilogue_**

"Hurry up, Jade." Roy glanced down at his watch. "Our flight leaves in less than two hours."

From the bathroom of the little apartment came Jade Harper's low, husky voice - the same as it had always been. "Give me five more minutes."

"We'll be on a plane for eight hours. Why exactly do you feel the need to do your hair and dress for a catwalk?"

She stepped out of the bathroom and leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed loosely over a very small and slim-fitting black dress. Roy sat up a little against the pillows on the bed.

"Red," she purred in her most sultry tone. "We've only been married a day. Don't tell me you're already going to give up on all the fun stuff."

He worked very hard to hide his gulp. From the wide grin that split across her narrow face, he guessed that it hadn't escaped her. Nothing ever did.

"Plane," he reminded her, and swung his legs off the bed before this could devolve into the kind of activity they were supposed to be saving for the honeymoon. They'd come close to leaving once already, only to be completely and utterly sidetracked. Not the plan.

Jade smirked and reached for her pile of bags next to the dresser and flicked off the bathroom light. "Spoilsport."

* * *

They were married the day after Cheshire was abandoned - blood pooling and heart barely beating - by the Shadows in New Mexico. Jade had signed _Crock_ on the marriage license under "maiden name" as Jade Nguyen's "remains" were cremated, and she had become Jade Harper with rib splints on her chest and the bitter taste of the poison she'd swallowed only hours ago still on her tongue.

She was free. No more looking over her shoulder or waiting by the tiny silver cell phone, no more murdering or thieving or masters. No more Cheshire.

That part made her a little sad. For so many years, Cheshire had protected her, fought for her, kept her strong. Made sure she had money to feed and clothe herself, a place to go when she needed to sleep, and something to do when the world became so crushingly small and the guilt crept up on her, threatening to consume vulnerable little Jade Nguyen. Cheshire had made sure Jade Nguyen survived, always. And now she had died so that Jade Harper could live.

Jade smiled to herself at this thought. The night outside the airplane window was black and blue, a swirling pattern of bruised skyline. She turned to look at Roy - her husband - as he dozed lightly beside her. Predictably, he hadn't protested when she'd plopped herself down in the window seat. Big Red was afraid of flying.

He hadn't wanted to leave the country, but she'd insisted, and when Nightwing backed her up - something about lying low for a few weeks, but she saw how the boy had smiled at her - Roy gave in and paid two months' rent in advance, and gamely allowed Jade to purchase plane tickets with his credit card.

It was mid-December now, and even though they'd had their fair share of cold and snow in Michigan, it was nowhere near like where they were going.

"The Alps?" he'd asked, looking over her shoulder as she made travel plans on her phone only hours before - unbeknownst to them - she was to be summoned by the Shadows.

She'd grinned and tugged him onto the bed with her by his belt loops. "There's nothing cozier than Christmas in Switzerland."

* * *

"You're not going to throw up, are you?" Roy heard in his ear, and tightened at the accompanying poke in his ribs.

He cracked an eye open. She was turned towards him in her seat as the night outside the window over her shoulder was slanted at a dangerous angle, and he repressed the urge to raise an arm and swipe her back against the head rest.

That, and the sickening take-off sensation of all his inner organs dropping away, kept him from rolling his eyes or snapping out some tough or heroic comeback.

"Shut up."

Her smile could have powered cities. With his fingers squeezing dents into the barely-cushioned arm rests and his teeth clenched so hard his jaw was hurting, he wondered if she knew she sometimes smiled like that. He still found it impossible to believe that _Cheshire_ -

No. Not Cheshire. Cheshire was dead, scattered in the deserts of New Mexico. It was just Jade who sat beside him now, whole and undivided, gazing out the window at the world speeding away below them, one hand propping up her cheek and the other silently drumming patterns into her own arm rest. Roy's eye was caught by the flash of green and gold on her dancing fingers, and felt a different thrill fly through him.

* * *

He didn't know how she felt about rings. She had a few in the jewelry box that had appeared on his dresser not long after that first weekend that seemed like years ago, and she'd told him once - teasingly, so he hadn't been sure that she was serious - that she sometimes wore one on her fourth finger when she left the apartment if she was in a hurry and didn't want to be constantly stopped and asked for her number.

It wasn't as if they'd talked in-depth about getting married. His proposal had been as much a surprise to him as it had been to her. But that week, he spent all his lunch breaks hunting through jewelry stores, being wooed and flattered and bargained with by salespeople who couldn't believe that he didn't carry a picture of his lady love with him wherever he went. It was tiring, and by the end of the week he'd lost his patience with them all. Not to mention that he had yet to see anything that didn't look like a cheap piece of crystal or wouldn't leave him destitute after signing the sales slip.

Finding the jade ring was a complete accident. He'd been walking through the international district, searching in vain for the smoky salon that he'd been dragged into all those weeks ago - call it a hankering or an addiction, but that Al-Qahwa was _good_ - and had passed by a display in the window of one of the many Chinese antique stores.

He didn't care if it was tacky. The ring was beautiful; a perfectly rounded cut of tiny polished dark green jade set into a thin, intricately designed burnished gold band. The old woman in the shop had gone on and on about it's unique history in some Chinese emperor's family - which he doubted anyone would ever believe - but in the end hadn't asked for anything outrageous, and he'd bought it that day.

If she thought it was tacky - a jade ring for Jade - she hadn't said so when he gave it to her later that evening. Far from it; if the way she'd dropped the plate of stir fry - on the counter, thankfully - and leapt at him when he'd popped open the little cloth box was any indicator, she was more than willing to overlook the play on her name.

* * *

A few hours into the flight, when the plane had leveled off and he'd recovered from the last bout of turbulence, Roy turned his head and caught Jade's eye, gazing back with dark warmth out from beneath the thick cowl of her hair.

"Christmas in Switzerland?" He would've asked earlier - probably should have, knowing her affinity for heavy spending - but they had been fairly busy the last few days.

She shrugged against the airline cushions. "I've been a few times," she said softly. It was dark outside the window again - they'd caught up to the sun and passed it by not too long ago and most of the passengers around them were asleep. "It's nice. Especially in winter."

Roy nodded and took a steadying breath through his nose. He really should stop looking out the window.

Leaping between trees or off skyscrapers with nothing but his grapple and foam arrows to save him from a crushing death? Just fine. But being strapped into an unnaturally-shaped seat on a giant mass of iron and steel puttering along at forty thousand feet? No matter how good his aim was, no arrow could save him from a fall like that.

* * *

He'd gotten the call the night Jade scooped up her bag and traipsed out the door. After, of course, taking her time to give him a sweet and lingering goodbye. _One last fuck-you to the Shadows_, she'd said, even though it was him who'd been fucked.

He was still in bed when his phone went off on the nightstand. Grabbing it up - it was probably Dick, calling to quadruple-check everything with him again - he hit the talk button without looking at the caller ID.

"Dick, it's late, and she just - "

_"What the hell, Roy?"_

He froze on top of the sheets, phone pressed against his ear. High-pitched, shrill, voice thick with anger and worry and hurt.

"Dinah?"

She didn't even pause.

"How long did you think you could keep this a secret, exactly?" she screeched through the earpiece, and Roy groaned inwardly.

"Wally told you," he growled, and pressed a hand to his eyes. _Damn that kid_. It was a wonder he ever held onto a secret identity.

"Does it matter?" She was _really_ upset. "How could you not tell us? Tell _me_? And _Cheshire_? She's a murderer, Roy!"

His grip on his brow tightened. "She - "

"Don't give me any 'she's changed' bullshit. She's a killer and a criminal and she's dangerous."

"Dinah, I - "

"You just never _think_, Roy, and that's how you get yourself into trouble! Do you have any idea what this means? For all of us? And don't think that I haven't figured out that she was the one behind Vladivostok, because I'm not stupid, Roy, and - "

"Dinah!"

The shouting finally stopped. Roy pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and took a breath.

"We're getting married."

Silence.

"Dinah?"

Nothing.

And then, in the background - it would've been more faint if either of them on the line were making any noise whatsoever - came an unmistakable roar of surprise.

"He said they're _what_?"

Great. Ollie was in the room.

"Roy." His old mentor's voice was gruff with shock.

He sighed. "Yeah?"

"What the fuck is this about you getting married?"

Roy let out a frustrated breath. "It's happening. Get over it."

"You're too young to get hitched. And she's _evil_."

"She's still a person, Ollie, and not everything's in black and white!"

He was a little surprised at his outburst. Probably because he'd been caught off-guard. This was bound to happen sometime, he just hadn't been ready for it that night.

There was a muffled sound, and Dinah's voice sounded through the phone again, calm and soothing this time.

"Roy."

He didn't respond.

"Roy, you know that we love you. And we want you to be happy, we really do." It almost sounded as if she were pleading with him, and for a second he felt the wild impulse to tell her that he knew what he was doing, that she didn't need to worry, that she was a great adopted-mother but he could handle himself.

"But we also want you to live to see thirty." Mushy feelings gone. "Whatever's going on, how do you know Cheshire isn't involved with you just so she can take on a hit for the Shadows?"

He could see them in his mind in their room on the Watchtower; Ollie probably pacing back and forth, clenching and unclenching his fists, mustache and goatee bristling with agitation, and Dinah, perched worriedly on the edge of the bed or the couch, blue eyes staring fixedly into space as if staring straight at him, blonde brow furrowed with concern.

"I know it's really _Jade_," he began, and a list flashed unbidden through his head of all the things he knew about Jade that nobody ever knew about Cheshire; that she was a vegetarian, that she hated cuddling, that she sang in French in the shower but only in the mornings, that she curled up into a ball when she watched TV, that she loved to read, that she secretly adored her sister, that she hated being a slave to her master's will. "I know it's her and not the assassin that I'm marrying, because Nightwing is going to help me kill Cheshire."

He hit the end button and put the phone back on the nightstand before flipping over onto his stomach and closing his eyes. He didn't want to hear the heavy silence, and was too tired to explain anything else that night.

* * *

Jade listened to the hum of the plane's twin engines, filling her ears and drowning out any irritating snores or grunts of her fellow passengers, and her fingers fidgeted restlessly over her dress with the thin but hard layer of plaster covering part of her rib cage. It was beginning to itch again. She would have tried to catch a few hours of rest before landing, like her ever-attentive husband next to her, but she never slept in public, as a rule.

Alright, that wasn't fair. Roy could be very attentive. She could think of a few times very recently when he had been selflessly and completely attentive...

* * *

"Why haven't you been out being a hero all week?" she'd asked one night. They were on opposite ends of the couch; she was watching some German mystery flick, and Roy was fiddling around with his arrow kit some more, scratching out diagrams and equations and piecing together the instrument out of delicate-looking parts that was to pierce through Cheshire's heart.

Not really, but that was the scene they were putting on, so it counted.

He looked up from his work, eyes stuck in mid-squint. The bright blue of them was still striking, even when caught between scrunched-up lids.

"I told you," he said, and his voice was thick from disuse. He'd been in the same position when she left hours ago for the gym, and looked like he hadn't moved when she'd come back. "I'm going to try cutting back on patrols."

She sat up. He'd told her no such thing. "When did you say that?"

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. He really wasn't looking too good. "In Palo Alto? You said you'd stop being Cheshire if I stopped stepping out on you every night." Under his ragged T shirt, thick shoulders rose and fell casually as he turned back to his work. "You're keeping up your end, so I should keep up mine."

"What about saving the city and your white-knight syndrome?"

He scowled at the red shaft in his fingers as he applied a fletching. "I worked something out with Commissioner Reiner. He hired more officers to perform night patrols in high-crime areas, and I've been going by the police department a few days a week to train them."

Jade raised her eyebrows. That sounded... strangely pragmatic. And like it might actually work as a Red Arrow substitute.

When she crawled across the couch and tugged the arrow parts out of Roy's hands, he looked up almost angrily, and there were dark shadows under the edges of his eyes.

"Just because you don't run around at night anymore doesn't mean you don't have to relax," she reminded him, and silenced his grumbling about _still have to take care of the Shadows_ and _keeping you alive_ with a deep kiss.

She meant to take care of _him_ that night. She really did. He'd been busting his balls for weeks - at the expense of sleep and play and even showering, which she'd been very quick to pick up on - and she knew it was all for her. Well, for _them_, but it wasn't his death they were staging to ward off a powerful and far-reaching gang of assorted ninjas and assassins, and _she_ sure hadn't been losing much sleep to the scheme, since all she had to do was wait for the call.

But, like every other time in recent weeks - or ever, if Jade was being honest with herself - she let Roy wrestle control from her, and allowed him, against her initial intentions, to push her backwards from her knees until her back was against the cushions, and even let him tug her shorts down as his mouth attacked hers with a ragged fervor she'd been missing for the last day or so.

He was just so... attentive. He never asked her to do anything for him, never complained, never forced her. He almost constantly made sure she was taken care of, before even considering his own needs. She practically had to fight him those nights she wanted to ease his tension, to make him feel how he always made her feel.

"Roy," she breathed as his fingers coaxed her up into her high. His name had become easier and easier for her to say, until she never even had to think about it anymore when they were making love to each other. Which she also allowed herself to admit - that they _made love_ now. Though never aloud, and especially never to him.

She couldn't let everything go to hell just because they were getting married, could she?

"Roy."

"Hm?"

"Let me - "

"Later, Jade."

She wouldn't forget.

* * *

The seatbelt sign flashed on - finally - and a flight attendant's cheery voice came over the intercom to request in English, German, and French for everyone to please return to their seats and settle in for landing. The plane began to rumble and rock as it dipped forwards, and people strapped themselves in hurriedly.

Roy's hand fumbled around until it found Jade's. She rolled her eyes, but allowed him to lace his fingers with hers on the arm rest.

"Big baby," she said under her breath, and only escaped his scowl because he was keeping his eyes firmly shut.

The plane landed at Zurich International, and everyone disembarked without panic or incident, though Jade couldn't help but remark that her husband routinely chased after and apprehended criminals and villains of every flavor and stripe, not to mention herself, and yet was scared shitless by a little international plane ride.

Besides glaring at her and wheeling an airport hand cart to the baggage carousel a little more quickly than would have been polite to his new wife, he ignored the jibe.

* * *

"So your superhero daddy knows?"

Jade was hunched over on the bed, chin resting on her knees, as she painted her toenails - despite what felt like the hundreds of times Roy had told her to do it somewhere other than where they slept.

It was late - or early? - and they'd just gotten back from New Mexico less than an hour ago. She had just showered all the rusty red gunk out of her hair - her own blood - and had relented in her protests and allowed Roy to stick a stiff patch of gauze and medical tape over the purpling bruise on her chest, right above her heart. She insisted that she was completely unhurt, but he wasn't taking any chances.

"It's better than your supervillain daddy knowing."

Her two gold rings - one adorned with jade, the other a simple woven band - flashed on her fourth finger in the light from the lamp on the nightstand, and she seemed to consider this for a moment. "_Touche_."

Roy continued opening the dresser drawers, folding and tossing clothes into an open suitcase on the other side of the bed, and Jade finished painting all the toes on one foot before she spoke again.

"Is there anybody else?"

Roy looked up. "Anybody else what?"

Her face was unreadable. "Anybody who knows about these." She held her left hand up in the light and pointed at his own band.

"Oh." He didn't know what she wanted to hear. Was she afraid of the Justice League finding out? Or her father, whom he'd so gallantly pointed out was a super villain? Or her sister? "No, just Nightwing and GA and Black Canary."

"She's like your mother, isn't she?" Dark eyes were watching him closely as she said this.

He didn't cease packing. "I guess. Why?"

She lifted one shoulder and let it fall before returning to her ministrations on her other foot. "You have a few photos with you and her in them. She looks a little old for you, and the whole world already knows she's with Arrow Senior." He waited while she paused. "I guess I was just curious."

Roy felt his eyes widening. Not a lot, but probably enough for her to notice if she would look at him.

She was asking him about his family. In a roundabout, evasive way, but still.

They almost never talked about their family lives. Not that Roy really had one; his biological dad had died almost twenty years ago, and the old man who'd raised him until he was fourteen was dead and buried in his past as well. No mother, siblings, uncles or aunts or cousins. And for a long time after Ollie had found him and adopted him, it had been just the two of them. From the way Jade used to taunt him when she had been Cheshire, he knew she was aware of his more recent family history - it could hardly be a secret when a teenage boy started running around with a masked hero at all hours of the day and night.

But he'd never asked about her family. Sure, he'd learned from the Team and the League that she was Artemis' sister, daughter of Sportsmaster and Huntress; that was common knowledge now. He'd never asked, though - he never thought she would want to talk about it.

"Do you want to tell Artemis?" he asked, and was surprised at how soft his voice sounded.

She didn't even look up from her red toes.

"Yes."

* * *

It was well into February when the Harpers returned from Switzerland, but the weather in Palo Alto was still warm, if a little wet.

They were only stopping by for the weekend; both Artemis and Wally had made it very clear that since they were seniors, they were being ruthlessly assaulted with thesis work, not to mention those pesky midterms. But Jade wouldn't take no for an answer, and so she had wheedled a ride out of the college students for a Friday soon after Valentine's Day.

"You're such an asshole," Artemis complained to her sister in the car, and Wally was silently glad he'd snatched the keys from her fist. She was a horrible driver when she was upset. "I can't believe you guys didn't tell us you got married!"

Jade smirked, and behind the seat - out of sight of both her grumping sister and her nosy boyfriend - she reached for Roy's hand. He smiled, too, not even taken aback at her willful contact. His wife had become a little more affectionate in the last few weeks.

"That's not all," Jade said teasingly, and made an obvious move to rest her hand on her stomach.

Always the drama queen.

Artemis' eyes bulged in the rearview mirror, and she whipped around so fast that her ponytail hit Wally in the face.

_"You're pregnant!"_

Wally almost slammed into the airport shuttle in front of them.

* * *

**Nothing like a nice long chapter to say "_El fin_." Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing, and if we all wish really hard together maybe we'll get a happy ending for Roy and Jade, Young Justice-style. - Nell Fratelli**


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